


An Empire for Two

by sergeant_angel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Coronations, F/F, F/M, Magical Wounds, Mix of Show and Book Canon, Northern politics, Ooops, Queen in the North, R plus L equals J, Warging, battlefield reunion, i finally finished this and it didn't kill me HA HA joke's on you fic, slow burn? does it burn at all????, stark sisters supporting one another, textbook example of 'oops it got away from me', this was supposed to just be QUITE LITERALLY a battlefield reunion, uneasy friendships that make for killer alliances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 04:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12810048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeant_angel/pseuds/sergeant_angel
Summary: Of course the first time Jon and Arya see each other in nearly a decade is because of a battle against the army of the dead.Jon never thought he'd be grateful for the Others, but perhaps he is.





	An Empire for Two

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by that prompt floating around about Jon and Arya reuniting on a battlefield. This was JUST supposed to be that and then...well....this happened. Ooops  
> unbeta'ed all mistakes mine, etc etc

Jon circles the battle astride Rhaegal, the dragon named for his father. Flight and fire have been the only things keeping Jon from going mad in the long days since he left Winterfell. Near a year, it's been. Almost a full year playing politics, nigh on ten turns of the moon since word of Arya arrived and seven since he learned of his true parentage. 

Jon longs for home, and right now the only thing standing between him and home is this battle. To be sure, it's not a battle yet; right now it's an army of the dead staring at an army of the living; hundreds of wights and a White Walker astride a skeletal horse facing a hundred northmen and wildlings.  

And three dragons. 

The wights are the first to move and Jon will have to commend the commander of the North for holding, for letting the dead break themselves on the shields of the living and giving the dragons an opportunity to help before the battle becomes too enmeshed. 

The armies meet all too quickly, two hundred wights at least still fighting, even as a hundred or more collapse into charred piles of bone. Jon pulls Rhaegal back to try and find a new opening when something catches his eye. 

Writhing and snapping in the middle of the fight he can see the pale form of Ghost. Jon stares at the hulking shape next to Ghost, a beast that can only be another direwolf. It must be Bran's, it can _only_ be Bran's, but Bran can't possibly be here. Has he warged into his wolf? Is that why Ghost is here, following his packmate? It takes a moment for the rest of the scene to make sense—there are _dozens_ of wolves around the two direwolves. Smaller wolves, to be sure, but so _many_ of them, tearing wights limb from limb. 

A traitorous thought scratches at Jon's throat. _Maybe it's_ _Nymeria_. But Nymeria isn't with Arya, not since she left Winterfell all those years ago. Sansa told him about Joffrey, about the boy Mycah, how Arya had run Nymeria off but Lady had been killed anyway.  

It doesn't mean anything, even if it is Nymeria. It's a foolish thing to do in the middle of battle, but as Jon pulls Rhaegal about he _reaches_ for Ghost. 

 _Cold._ The smell of the cold dead, biting at his nose, but the warm smell of pack next to him, of his sister-- 

Jon slams back into his body. Sister. Pack.  

Arya.  

Jon scans the battlefield, trying to find an opening where dragonfire will harm wights and not the living. Trying to see Arya. _She might not be here._ He could try warging into Nymeria, but the idea makes him uncomfortable—only Ghost is his to join with.  

 _She has to be here._ Gods be good, he doesn't know which is worse, the thought that she might be here, fighting for her life, or the thought that she isn't here, that she's at Winterfell or worse that it's all a mistake and it's not her, it's another pretender, a ruse, a decoy to take their home and shatter his heart. 

 _It has to be her._  

Beneath him, Rhaegal screams into the cold, a plume of steam and smoke engulfing them both. Jon takes it as a reminder, and carefully sets aside all his thoughts about Arya to focus on the task at hand. He sees his opening--a lone Northman has fought his way through the mass of wights to the White Walker on the hill. There's something familiar about the man, or perhaps the clothes he wears. Jon can't see the man's sword and his torch he carries in his right hand is knocked loose, fizzling out in the snow as Jon watches. He urges Rhaegal onward, lower, until they are past the living and all that is before them is a sea of the dead.  

" _Dracarys_ _,"_ Jon says, and Rhaegal opens his mouth and lets forth a torrent of flame that devours the wights circling the base of the hill. The Walker and the Northman are too close to one another—any flame aimed at the Other would take both of them and Jon is loathe to condemn a man to die in flames. 

Jon looks over his shoulder to see the Northman spin a broken spear over his head. The wood is still there, but the spearhead itself is missing and won't be of any use against the mounted White Walker who is now charging towards him.  

The man holds his position as the Other bears down, swinging a white-blue blade of ice. Jon's heart is in his throat as the man ducks, cracking the staff against the knee of the Walker's mount. The horse pitches forward and the man whirls, bringing the staff back behind the animal's front legs.  

The rider is thrown from the horse. The White Walker rises, slashing his blade at the man, but the man is— _unusually_ short, and manages to get inside the Walker's reach. There is a flurry of motion Jon can't track and then the White Walker bursts into a thousand thousand shards of ice and roughly half of the wights collapse into piles of brittle bones.  

With a fierce grin, Jon faces the battle once more.  

" _Dracarys_." 

 _****_  

 _Dragons_. The woman can't help but feel awe as they land, the earth shaking under their weight. Reading about them as a child was one thing; seeing them, scales shimmering in different colors, plumes of flame leaping from their mouths to consume your enemy, is another. 

Nymeria and Ghost lope towards her, Tormund trailing behind them. She rests a hand on Nymeria's head as the direwolf noses at her leg before the wolf jerks her head to the side and bares her teeth with a growl, jumping over the White Walker's horse to rip the head off of a wight shambling its way towards them.  

"Well done, Ghost." The woman scratches behind his ears. He and Nymeria had been whirlwinds, tearing wights into pieces. Ghost licks at her thigh, warm rough tongue cleaning the wound that sends pain throbbing all down her leg. The White Walker's blade had been like a shard of ice, freezing and burning as it sliced. All things considered, she's a bit surprised she still has the leg. Grateful, to be sure, but surprised.  

Ghost and Nymeria make the woman remember, drawing her back into her body. _Yo_ _u_ _are a sword_ , she had been told once. A sword, a stick, a dagger, she is a weapon that breathes and bleeds. _You have a name_. But what is it? Cat...she'd been Cat, once. _The_ _dagger. Bran and I named the dagger Cat's Paw. Our mother. My mother was Cat. I'm not Cat._  

Bran. She has a brother named Bran, and a sister with hair as red as fire. The woman struggles for her sister's name before remembering her task. _Her_ name. A woman has a name. 

Needle? 

No. Needle is a sword. _You are Needle, but that is not your name._  

Needle is Jon Snow's smile, and the heart tree, and her family and Winterfell. _Winterfell_. Robb, Eddard, Rickon, Catelyn, Sansa, Bran. _Jon Snow is my—mine. He's mine, whoever I am._  

Which brings her back to the beginning. _A girl is--_  

Ghost licks her face, and Arya-- 

That's her name. 

 _A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell._ The thought sends warm satisfaction through her. For a long time her name was a failure—a failure to learn, to serve, a failure to the Many-Faced God. Now, her name is a victory. 

Arya curls her fingers in the fur of Ghost's neck, tugging his head away. She leans heavily on him as they make their way to Tormund, and sudden as lightning a longing sweeps over Arya, leaving her breathless. She _misses_ Jon. She always has, but here, now...she doesn't want Ghost. She wants to lean on Jon.  

Instead, she moves her weight to Tormund, letting Ghost and Nymeria take off for the green dragon who is swooping low over the battlefield.  

The cream and the red are the ones Arya and Tormund head to now. _The Queen will be with her red son_ , Bran had told her before she'd set out.  

Beside her, Tormund swears as they face the rider on the red, a small woman with silver hair. 

A few steps is all Arya manages before stumbling, her leg burning from the gash. Tormund makes to kneel, to look at it, but Arya shakes her head. "Dragon Queen first." 

"You certain? Can't have you dying before King Crow sees you." 

"It's not even bleeding any more, Tormund." 

"Aye, then, Queen Wolf. Lean on me. That her?" 

Arya nods as they approach the small pale-haired woman, dressed in a splendid shadowcat fur tunic, and still shivering in the cold. 

Tormund notices too, if his muttered _Southerners_ is anything to go by. 

This, too, is another thing entirely, from hearing rumors and tall-tales and truths about the Mother of Dragons on the streets and docks and brothels of Braavos, to seeing the woman herself.  

A man takes his place at the queen's side, clad in armor with a bear on the breastplate. A Mormont? 

"Are you the commanders here?" He asks. 

"Aye," Tormund nods, allowing Arya the chance to listen and look. The Mormont man stands too close to the queen—closer than a sworn sword should, at any rate.  

"This," the Mormont man says, "is Daenerys Stormborn--" 

"Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lady Regnant of the Six Kingdoms, _Khaleesi_ of the Great Grass Sea, _Mhysa_ , Breaker of Chains, the Unburnt, and Mother of Dragons," Arya finishes. "An honor, _khaleesi_." 

"Lot of titles for such a small woman," Tormund observes, with a look in his eye that gives Arya a twinge of dread at what might come out of his mouth next. 

"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage," Daenerys says after a long, silent moment.  

"Of course," Arya nods. "This is Tormund Giantsbane, Tall-talker, Horn-blower, and Breaker of Ice. Also known as Tormund Thunderfist, Husband to Bears, the Mead-king of Ruddy Hall, Speaker to Gods and Father of Hosts."  

"Aye," he grins at her. "Thank you." 

Arya rolls her eyes at him.  

"And you, my lady?" Mormont asks. "Who are you?" 

"I'm no one," she says before Tormund can answer for her. 

This means nothing to the Queen, going by her confused smile, but it means a great deal to the man next to her, who steps forward, hand on his sword. "And how long are you returned from Braavos, my lady? Curious thing for your guild to send no one here to lead a battle against the Others." 

"Her guild?" Daenerys asks. 

"A Faceless Man, _khaleesi_. An assassin." 

"Strange assassin," Daenerys raises an eyebrow. "And it's seven kingdoms, not six." 

"Six, my lady. The North will not kneel." 

"The North will. Who are you to argue this with me, if you are no one?" 

Tormund doubles over laughing, slapping his thigh.  

"Tormund," Arya says sharply, for all the good it does. Tormund is one of the rare men who has seen what she can do and still does not fear her; sometimes, Arya appreciates this. This is not one of those times.  

Daenerys watches this all with an air of bemusement. "If you're no one, do you have a name?" 

"A girl has no name." The phrase slips out, unbidden and instinctive. She could no more have stopped it than she could keep herself from ducking a blow. _A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell_ , she reminds herself, curling her hand around Needle. Whoever she is, wherever she is, Needle always reminds her of that. _Arya,_ _I'm_ _Arya._  

Well, Needle always reminds her of Jon, and Winterfell, and _home_ , and No One has no home. 

"A girl has no name?" Daenerys raises an eyebrow. "That will make conversation hard." 

"Who needs to speak when you can let your sword sing?" Tormund muses. "And I thought there were three dragons." 

"The third will join us soon," the Queen prevaricates. "He scouts for us, to make sure no more wights catch us unawares." 

There is some strange light in the queen's eyes as she speaks of the dragon. Love, perhaps? 

"He and his rider are dear to me, nameless girl," Daenerys answers the question Arya does not ask. "I would keep him as far from harm as possible." 

"Then why'd you bring him to a battle with wights?" Tormund mutters to Arya. She just shakes her head, focusing on footsteps crunching in the snow behind them, swift approaching, and behind those the direwolves. 

"Your Grace," Brienne jogs over to them. "Would you like--" 

"Your Grace?" Daenerys asks, her voice lilting dangerously. "And are you King Tormund, as well?" 

Tormund laughs, and Arya scarce has time to wonder how he will style her this time, when he is jerked out of her grip, spun around by a man flanked by wolves. 

**** 

" _Where is Arya_?" Jon feels frantic as he seizes Tormund by the shoulders. "Her direwolf is here, _where is she?_ " 

"Aegon," Daenerys says, voice soft but firm, and her use of his true name makes him grind his teeth. "We will find her. Calm yourself." 

"Aye, calm yourself, Lord Snow." Tormund claps him on the shoulder. "I see now why you took a knife in the heart for her." 

" _King_ ," Daenerys corrects. 

"Lord Snow, King Snow, I won't bend the knee to him no matter his name," Tormund says jovially.  

"Wait." The other person Daenerys is speaking to turns, the Northman who took down the White Walker. The person is a woman, something achingly familiar about her. "You took a knife--" 

"I thought that was a figure of speech," Daenerys says, voice dry.  

"In the heart," Tormund seems almost gleeful as he says it. "For Arya." 

The woman who had been standing with Tormund chokes on her breath and Jon looks at her. Blood stains the leg of her trousers, a slice showing pale skin and a jagged red gash still bleeding. A slim blade on one hip, a dagger on the other. The blade is familiar but Jon's eyes are drawn inexorably up. Dark hair pulled back from her face, barely brushing her shoulders. Her eyes are grey. Grey like dusk in the winter, grey like snow and ice and wind. 

Jon's hands drop to his sides, his face numb, a spark in his chest growing, growing, consuming his heart, his lungs, flames licking up his throat and filling his mouth. 

" _Arya?"_ Jon doesn’t know if he whispers or yells her name, if he says it at all.  

He can't breathe. How can his heart be on fire, consuming him from within, and still be beating so hard it feels like to come out of his chest? 

"Jon?" Her voice is strange but familiar. She puts her hands on his face, peering at him as if she's not sure it's actually him. " _Jon?"_  

**** 

"His name is Aegon Targaryen," Daenerys corrects her. 

Arya almost turns to glare at the woman, but Jon is in front of her, Jon who she hasn't seen in over ten years, and looking at him is more important.  

He's changed. Arya feels stupid for thinking it, as if he'd look the same as when they were children. His hair has waves in it that she doesn't remember, though perhaps it's just short—he's heavy with muscle now, and he stands with a confidence that he hadn't had as a boy--but his eyes are the same grey of the sky before the sun. He has scars on his face, and something dark lingers in his eyes.  

Arya knows the darkness; she's seen it in hers.  

 _He knows the M_ _any-Faced God._  

"Aegon?" She finally says, not quite believing it, and Jon flinches. 

"Did Bran not tell you?" He looks like the words pain him to say. 

She shakes her head. "Well, he—he tried to speak to me through dreams, but I had greater need of wolf dreams. The message was—garbled." 

Jon looks like her words wound him— _I see why you took a knife in the heart for her_ , what is Tormund talking about? All his stories about _Lord Crow_ and he'd never mentioned that-- 

"My mother," Jon begins, then shakes his head. "Your father--" 

" _My_ father?" 

"My mother was your Aunt Lyanna," the words leave him in a rush. "She married Rhaegar Targaryen. I'm the son of Rhaegar Targaryen." 

"Rhaegar—Rhaegar _Targaryen_? But that means—that means--" _You'_ _re not the heir to the North but you're the heir to the Iron Throne. You're not a bastard and you never were. Our father never dishonored my mother. You're not my brother--_  

"I'm your cousin," Jon finishes, almost as if he knew what she was thinking. "And the North isn't mine, it's Sansa's." 

"Actually--" 

"Aegon," Daenerys says the name again, and Jon finally looks at her. 

"Aegon," he says, leaning in so it's just for Arya. "The name my mother gave me." 

 _His mother, my aunt, he doesn't look anything like a Targaryen--_  

"Aegon?" Arya shakes her head, trying to rid herself of the taste of the name, the wrongness of it. That's not who is before her now. "Aejon, maybe." 

His face breaks into a smile at that. It's a familiar smile, as familiar as Needle in her hand. Jon Snow's smile is home. It's the North. _It's everything_ , a low voice in her head says. "Aejon," he repeats. "Better, I suppose." His face grows serious, lines lightly creasing along his eyes, his forehead. Arya wants to study those lines, the scars, all the things about him that have changed. Wants to take her gloves off and trace them with the tips of her fingers. "Arya." 

 _It's Jon, it's Jon, it's Jon,_ that voice sings in the back of her head. Any distance between them becomes too much and she loops her arms around his neck like she had as a child. His go around her waist, and he lifts her up so her toes just brush the snow, squeezing her so all the air leaves her lungs.  

It doesn't come back. The air leaves and a hole yawns open in her chest, and Arya presses her face into the fur of Jon's cloak, burrowing her nose so she can press it against Jon's neck and inhale a smell so familiar it hurts.  

 _Home, I'm home._  

It takes Arya a moment to realize that she's doing something she hasn't in years.  

She's crying. 

**** 

"Ae— _Jon—_ perhaps you can explain--" someone puts a hand on Jon's shoulder and he shies away, Arya still in his arms, a growl ripping from his throat. More wolf than dragon. Tormund laughs, but Jon doesn't. Arya is shaking in his arms, and he can feel her tears freezing on his skin. He'd seen her cut down a White Walker and now she is crying because of _him_ and someone is trying to take her away-- 

He finally sees what he's looking at: Daenerys staring at him, eyes wide, hand still stretched out from where she had reached to touch his shoulder. Mormont at her side, sword drawn, Tormund still laughing.  

"Might I present," Tormund stops laughing to begin, "Arya Stark, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, the Wolf of the Winter Rose, Changer of Faces, the Cat of the Canals, the Ghost of Harrenhal, Friend of the Freefolk, the Night Wolf of Winterfell, the Queen in the North." 

Jon's heart stops beating and his lungs stop breathing. _How? What happened? Don't let Sansa have been snatched from us, too_ \-- 

"The Queen in the North?" Daenerys is undoubtedly raising her eyebrow in that disbelieving way she has. Jon doesn't even need to look at her to know it; at any rate, to see it, he'd have to open his eyes and pull his face from Arya's shoulder.  

"Queen?" Jon asks, voice trapped against Arya's hair, when it becomes apparent that Arya isn't going to answer Daenerys. 

"Queen Regent, actually, until you honor the Young Wolf's wishes and step aside so she is Queen Regnant. King Robb named her heir," a new voice says. Brienne of Tarth? What could have caused her to leave Sansa's side? "Howland Reed himself came from Greywater Watch with a parchment bearing Robb's signature and the seals of his lords bannermen." 

Jon starts to laugh. Daenerys gained the support of one Stark only to have him not be a Stark at all and to have _Arya_ be the one she needs to win over. He sets Arya back on her feet and steps back from her. Robb's heir. _Queen in the North_. The phrase sets something humming in his veins. There is pain, too, that the North was never his, will never be his, but any pain is eclipsed by the fact that Arya is alive and _here._  

Something inside him aches sweetly as he looks on her, each beat of his heart against the scars he bears for her sending something bright and sure through his body.  

His men—no, _her_ men have begun to gather around them. Glovers and Mormonts and Tulleys, free folk and Karstarks and more. She _led_ them, Jon realizes. Led them into battle against an army of the dead. It could be pride that thrums through Jon at this realization. Perhaps relief. Robb chose his heir well; and Jon needs not fear for the North in her hands.  

"My Queen," one of the Glover men says, looking like there is no place he'd rather be less. "King Jon--" There is uncertainty in this voice. 

 _Do they know I am a_ _T_ _argaryen_ _and not a Stark bastard?_  

"Set up tents to tend to the wounded," Arya commands. "And gather the bodies." 

This Glover man nods with a murmured _a_ _t once, Your Grace_ yet he does not move. Jon can feel those eyes on him again. 

"My lord," the snow crunches under Brienne's feet, the sound louder than her voice. "The Northmen look to you. If you press your claim--" 

It would not surprise Jon if Brienne of Tarth meant to kill him if he challenged Arya's claim. Brienne and the North may not yet know that Jon has no claim to press, but even if he did, why would he? How could he take something that was Arya's by right? _Steal_ something that was Arya's? The thought is as incomprehensible to him as High Valyrian. Even when he was younger—he might have taken it from Robb, Jon will admit that. But even as a child, lost and lonely, hurting and motherless, he could not have taken this from her.  

"I'm not going to steal the North from you," she says in a rush, her words a familiar mirror of his thoughts. "But we had Robb's will, and we needed someone to lead us into battle." 

In a distant part of his mind he understands what is needed from him, and that part of him soars even as he sinks to his knees in front of Arya. Her lips part slightly in surprise and his heart breaks and reforms a thousand times over for the look in her eyes.  

He can sense Daenerys Stormborn bristling at his easy submission, and Jon cannot begrudge her that. He should not kneel to Arya, Targaryen to Stark, the Seven Kingdoms to the North, but he can't find it in himself to care.  

Arya is deadly—he can see it in how she stands, how she looks at him, but that shouldn't surprise him. He saw her fight. He saw her fight her way to the White Walker. _Tell me how you became so deadly_ , he wants to ask her. _Who honed the steel of you into a sword? Have_ I _changed so much and_ _failed_ _so greatly that you cannot love me_ _any more_ _? I should have ridden south for you when they took our father's head b_ _u_ _t I didn't and I failed you, let me atone, tell me what you need--_  

But Jon says nothing. He looks up at her, wild hair and even wilder eyes he remembers from his youth. He cannot take Winterfell and the North from her, not Arya, he can only give. Give whatever she will take from him. 

Everything, everything he has is hers and everything he _is_ is hers and always has been, so it is a thing no harder than breathing to draw Longclaw and place the naked blade before her. "My Queen," he says, the words warming him with some unnamable thing that overflows. "The Queen in the North." 

The eyes of the Free Folk are on them, the eyes of Northmen and the Dragon Queen alike. Do they understand, now, why he died for her? They watch him, these men who once worried that their King's only weakness was the youngest Stark girl, watching as Jon Snow, the White Wolf, former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and King in the North, the heir to the Iron Throne, kneels before Arya Stark of Winterfell while his heart beats and his pulse pounds, the life the fire gave him no longer a crackling in his bones but a refrain.

 _My queen,_ his heart sings.

Arya Stark, who has ever been his home.  _My_ _queen,_ his heart beats. _My_ _queen._  

**** 

Word spreads through the camp like flames through dry kindling, an apt comparison given that some of the news is that Jon is a Targaryen. 

The other news is that he bent the knee to her.  

Arya can't linger on that thought right now. Right now she moves through her men and women, offering a word there, a touch on the shoulder there. Some greet her with quiet respect—a bow and a murmured _Your Grace_. More still greet her with loud cries of "Queen Arya!" and cheers for bringing down the White Walker. The Free Folk, of course, just call her Arya or the occasional Queen Wolf, which is entirely Tormund's fault.  

These are her people. She has shared bread and salt with them; she has bound their wounds and had hers cleaned in return; she has taught their children to defend themselves. How could she do anything but love them? _You will marry a king and rule his castle._ Arya Stark's father had said that to her once. _Your father,_ she reminds herself. _You're Arya Stark. Your father thought you'd marry a king but now you_ are _one._  

The feel of Needle in her hand, the crunch of snow under her feet, the sharp sting of the air as she breathes remind her that she is Arya Stark of Winterfell. Even surrounded by her people, it's easy to forget. It may be that it is easy to become no one _because_ she is surrounded by others. Easy to fade into her pack, one wolf among many. 

 _You're Arya,_ _you're_ _queen, and you don't have the luxury of being No One right now. You're a_ _direwolf_ _, not a wolf._  

The sound of feet tramping through the snow multiplies and surrounds her as Pod and Brienne fall in at her side, Pod with one of his expectant silences that Arya has come to know well.  

"Your Grace," he begins, and she knows exactly what he is about to say. "You ought not have gone after the White Walker like that." 

 _All on my own,_ Arya thinks. _How can we protect you?_  

"All on your own," he continues. "How are we supposed to protect you?" 

"We're supposed to follow her, Podrick!" Jaime jogs up to them and slaps the boy's shoulder, sending him stumbling forward a few paces.  "Your Grace, I must insist you grow at least five more inches. You're far too short and it makes it hard to keep track of you on the field of battle." 

"I could be as big as the Mountain and you still wouldn't be able to follow me," she retorts, and her retinue falls silent for a moment, probably thinking on the absurdity of guarding a face-changing assassin.  

"The meeting with the Dragon Queen went well, I heard?" Jaime breaks the silence after a moment.  

"It went as well as could be expected," Brienne answers when it becomes apparent Arya will not. "She didn't say the word 'Usurper' once, and I've heard she is quite fond of it." 

"Does she know I'm here?" 

"No." Arya is the only one who knows the answer, so she is forced to speak, her breathing labored as pain lances up her leg. "I will tell her at the first opportunity so neither of you is caught unawares." 

"You remember your oath, Your Grace?" 

Only they that know Jaime Lannister hear the fear that laces his voice.  

"I remember." Arya could hardly forget. _Don't let her burn me_ , he'd pleaded. _If I must die, so be it, but by your own hand, my lady. Not by fire. Swear it, and I will guard your life with my own._  

 _Death by fire isn't a gift_ , he had continued. It had startled her, his use of the word _gift_. It is a part of her that he understands better than Brienne—something that Sansa and Pod cannot begin to comprehend. Jaime Lannister is the only member of her Queensguard who has been with her when she has given the gift. An old man with a shattered leg and a girl, half flayed by a Bolton man who had been hiding in the wolfswood. Clegane had been with them for the girl, before Arya was Queen. 

The Hound would have been a good man to have in battle--she'd asked Sandor to join her Queensguard, but all he'd done was scowl and loom even more menacingly behind Sansa. All for the good. Arya would have felt safe with him, but knowing he will tear apart anyone who looks at Sansa crosseyed is a very real comfort.  

Her leg has stopped bleeding when they get a final count of how many men they lost—thirty, out of near two hundred. More than she wanted, but less than she feared.  

They have the Dragon Queen to thank for that. 

And Jon.  

Jon rides a dragon and Jon is a _Targaryen_. She's pushed the thought down for hours so it's still fresh and surprising when it bubbles to the top of her mind.  

"Right, now," Tormund interrupts her thoughts as they finish circling the camp. "You've seen to your men, now it's time to see to you." 

"Right you are, Giantsbane." Without a constant flurry of action and words to buoy her, Arya realizes how cold and tired she is, that the hasty bandage around her leg is crusty brown with dried blood. Her injured leg trembles every time she sets weight on it. 

They reach her tent, a fire already burning, a table out with a map unfurled across it. Arya sinks into a chair as Brienne catches sight of Arya's leg. 

"Pod, we need to get water boiling. And wine. Tormund, clean linen strips and silk." 

"Shall I fetch you a needle, Brienne?" Jaime asks. 

"No, Jaime, I need you to guard the bloody queen!" 

Arya can't help but smile. There's something very satisfying about watching Brienne order people about. 

**** 

"You bent the knee," Daenerys seethes at him. " _You bent the knee_." 

"I did." Jon is giddy with it, stupid with it. 

"To give her claim to the North legitimacy, I suppose?" 

"Her claim is legitimate." _Queen in the North_ , his heart still sings. "The North followed her here. Robb named her. It is only right--" 

"The North is part of the Seven Kingdoms! Either my claim is legitimate, or hers. It cannot be both." 

Jon keeps his mouth shut. It isn't an argument he will win; it's not even one he wants to have. He just wants to go to Arya. 

"Aegon, do you realize what you've done?" 

It takes Jon a moment to remember that _he_ is Aegon. 

"You've given credence to the idea that the North is separate, rather than a part of my kingdom. _Our_ kingdom, Aegon." 

"Your Grace." Jon grasps civility with all this strength. "I am every bit as much a direwolf as a dragon." 

"So you would rather have a Wolf Queen than a Dragon Queen?" 

"A wolf already rules the North, blood of my blood," Jon points out. She likes it when he calls her that, _blood of my blood_. "Perhaps respecting that fact will earn you the North in due time. And who knows? You might even like her. I imagine she'd like you a great deal." 

Daenerys regards him, her face impassive as stone. "Perhaps you're right," she finally says.  

"He's right, _khaleesi_ ," Mormont steps between them, forcing Jon to take a step back. "Northmen are proud and independent. It's a different way of life than any other part of Westeros." 

"And closer to the Others, yes, I _know_ ," Daenerys insists.  

"Respecting someone they have chosen as a leader will show the Northmen that you respect _them_ , khaleesi. That you wish to learn about the difficulties of life in the North, unlike many a Southron king." 

Jorah continues to move between Dany and Jon. It takes Jon a minute to realize that Mormont is slowly edging him out of the tent, providing Jon with cover to duck out and seek Arya. Jon may not always like Jorah, but they do understand one another. 

**** 

Arya's laugh turns into a choked-back gasp as Brienne pours boiling wine on her wound. "Should have brought Sansa with us." 

"As you say, Your Grace," Brienne agrees, though Arya suspects she isn't really listening. 

"Aye, Queen Wolf, and is her needlework the same as yours, then?" Tormund sits next to Arya, a bowl of bloody linen at one side, a pile of clean bandages and other healing items on his other.  

"Should have brought her _because_ hers is different from mine." She examines the gash. "My stitches were never as good as hers, and I don't trust any of us with a needle." Brienne calls for Pod as Jaime stifles a laugh. 

"Then you can bleed out, little Queenling. Don't think the Dragon Queen would much mind that." 

"She didn't seem fond, did she?" 

"Because Lord Snow kneeled. Never thought I'd see him do that, myself, but here we are." 

Arya doesn't think about Jon kneeling, not now. Every time the memory flashes through her mind, it sends a hot flush of pride through her. It's not something she wants to examine with Tormund next to her. Pod tramps in, stomping snow from his boots and warming his hands over their fire. The way his face goes from red to grey to white as Brienne explains what he needs to do is enough of a distraction from thoughts of kneeling. 

"Why me?" Pod asks desperately as Brienne puts a needle in his hand. 

"Because you have the smallest hands, lad," Jaime informs him. "More agile. Other than our Lady Queen's hands, but I've seen her stitches before. They're abominable." 

"Such disrespect, Lannister," Arya points out. 

"Yes, and look how well my respectful silence served the last four kings," his tone is dry. "I thought I'd try something new." 

"How long to Winterfell?" Pod interrupts, turning to Arya before remembering himself. "Your Grace?"  

"If the weather holds? Two days hard ride. Four, with the wounded." 

Pod makes a strange noise. "Might be you could wait then." 

"Don't be stupid, Pod." Arya shakes her head at him fondly. "Sew it up." 

"Rudest queen I ever did meet," Tormund mutters. Pod just looks at her with wide-eyed horror. 

"Podrick," she says, drawing herself up as much as she can with her leg stretched out in front of her. "Take the needle and get to sewing. Do you think I want a man called Giantsbane poking me with something?" 

Tormund manages to swallow what was undoubtedly a remark about what he could poke her _with_. Arya imagines his silence has more to do with the look Jaime is wearing than any newfound respect for monarchy. 

Brienne opens her mouth, probably to chide the lot of them, when any response she might make is cut off by a commotion from outside the tent, followed by Daenerys Stormborn bursting through the flaps.  

" _Khaleesi_ ," Arya says easily, her hand loosely circling her dagger. "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage." 

"You were wounded." 

"Yes, it appears so. Pod, would you mind sewing this shut?" 

Pod mutters and reddens but finally begins. Daenerys seems fixated by him for several moments, watching as he sews shut Arya's gaping flesh.  

"We need to burn our dead before nightfall," Arya muses aloud. " _M_ _hysa_ _,_ would your dragons be willing to help with this task?" 

The Dragon Queen drags her eerie purple eyes away from Arya's bloody leg. "Would that not be some sort of insult, to you Northmen? To be set afire by a dragon?" 

Tormund snorts. "Not about insults. Practical, that's what it is." 

"I'd consider it a great honor to have my corpse burned by a dragon," Arya muses. _Make certain to do it before someone takes my face,_ she would say, but her Guard know this already.  

"I will remember that," Daenerys says. 

"Hm," Arya replies.  

"You led your men into battle," Daenerys says after a moment, seating herself across from Arya.  

"I'm a fair fighter, _khaleesi_ _._ " 

Jaime snorts at this assessment, but says nothing. Daenerys' eyes dart to the Lannister before coming back to rest on Arya.  

" _Fair_ does not seem entirely truthful. I saw you from the air, fighting towards the leader of the wights. You saved your men." 

"Isn't that my duty?" Arya points out. "To save my men, if I can?" 

"Some would argue that point. Some would say a princess has no place on the field of battle." Daenerys looks at Arya with naked curiosity. "How does a princess become a faceless man?" 

"How does a faceless man become a queen?" Arya rebuts. "I left the guild." 

"Then you are not a faceless man, in truth?" 

"It depends on your truth, _khaleesi_." There is a shadow outside her tent, and she knows instinctively it's Jon. She would rather him not hear these things as she tells them to others, but still, perhaps him having an escape is a kindness. "Only a faceless man can kill a faceless man." 

"And you have killed a faceless man?" 

"If I hadn't, I'd be dead," Arya gives the _khaleesi_ of the Great Grass Sea a thin smile just as Jon pushes aside the tent flap, limned in the light of the slowly setting sun. He is red-faced and breathless, as if he ran here. The tension dissolves from the lines of his face and from his shoulders when his eyes land on her.  

"Jon," she smiles at him, making to stand before Pod pushes her back down. 

"Your Grace, you need to hold still." 

Jaime shifts from foot to foot as Jon eyes him and Arya settles back with unease. "Tormund, find some refreshments for our guests. Wine and bread." 

"Aye." He looks at Daenerys with a combination of suspicion and admiration before ducking out. 

They sit in silence. It has the taste of an awkward silence, which Arya can recognize even if she doesn't feel it. Pod continues to stitch her leg shut, Brienne continues to loom over her shoulder, Daenerys continues to look uncomfortable. Much can be learned from silence, and the uneasy distance between Jon and Daenerys is very informative.  

Jon hovers, shifting from foot to foot as he tries not to stare at Pod—or perhaps at Arya herself, half-clothed, leg sticky with blood and wine. His movement to her side is sudden, startling the Dragon Queen as he strides to Arya in a swirl of dark wool.  

Brienne takes a half-step forward, hand on Oathkeeper, until Jon kneels at Arya's side. 

 _Tormund will be merciless in his ridicule if Jon keeps kneeling._  

"You're hurt." There is reproach in Jon's voice and his eyes. "Why is this just now being tended to?" His displeasure lingers as he looks at Pod and Brienne. 

"Lord Snow—Lord _Targaryen_ ," Brienne corrects herself. "Queen Arya insisted on seeing to her men first." 

"She's the Queen. She should have been seen to first." 

" _Lord Targaryen._ It's been some time since you last saw Arya Stark. Let me assure you that none of us—individually or together—could force her to do things in an order she did not desire." Brienne glowers rather impressively, considering Jon was once her king. 

Thankfully, Tormund returns with food and drink, and Pod ties off the silk. "Well done, Podrick," Arya examines his needlework, small, even stitches. "Much better than I could have done." 

"I doubt that, Your Grace." 

"Pod, I've sewn up my own wounds before. Trust me, this is better." 

Jon's hand on her bare knee draws her eyes to him. He's staring at the angry red flesh Pod has finished sewing shut, something dark and dangerous flickering in his grey eyes.  

"Jon." 

He looks at her, flushing red and snatching his hand back. "Sorry, Ar—Your Grace." 

"Don't be ridiculous, Jon." She ruffles his hair, forces herself to ignore how silky it is. "Clothes. Perhaps I should be fully dressed while entertaining." 

Brienne drops a clean pair of breeches in Arya's lap.  

"Thank you, Brienne," she says. Brienne stands in front of her, the knight's height and cloak shielding Arya from view as she struggles into the clothes. She takes a moment to push away the pain and the memory of Jon's hair under her fingertips before sliding past Brienne to take the food from Tormund. 

Arya holds the plate in front of Daenerys, waiting until the queen eats a bite to gesture Jaime over. "I'm sure my brother or Ser Jorah can explain to you how dearly we hold guest right in the north." 

"Cousin," Daenerys corrects, her smile hard. "He is your cousin, Lady Arya." 

"And she's a Queen," Jaime takes his place at Arya's side. "You have yet to call her such." 

Jorah Mormont's sword is drawn before anyone else can react. " _Lannister_ ," he spits. 

"Yes," Arya says as more swords are drawn. " _Khaleesi_ , this is Ser Jaime Lannister." 

"And is he a gift?" She asks. "The man who killed my father, as a show of goodwill?" 

Jorah would have to be first. Cat's Paw is still at her side and Arya could remove his hand and cut his throat in a breath and a simple backward swing would kill the Queen. Arya doesn't _want_ to think of these things, but it is as instinctual as breathing to her now. 

"Ser Jaime is a member of my Queensguard," is what Arya says.  

Mormont snorts at that, shaking his head. "Perhaps he'll do better as a Queensguard than he was a Kingsguard." 

"Perhaps he'll do better because he will be dead," Daenerys suggests. "I'm sure Drogon is hungry. Jorah, take him--" 

Arya slides in front of Jaime. "No. I didn't have to let you know he was here. Doing so was a courtesy, to let you know he is not here to harm you, or to spite you. Jaime Lannister has proven his loyalty to the North—and to me. He's here in defiance of Cersei." 

"Defiance?" Jon looks at her, startled. "Did you not travel with the soldiers she pledged to our cause?" 

"My sister lied," Jaime says flatly. "She never intended to help you fight the army of the dead. She hopes they'll kill you both and leave Westeros for the taking. Even now she's trying to negotiate with the Golden Company to come here and ride through the North." 

"And that's how he's proven his loyalty to you?" Daenerys doesn't sound angry, rather curious in a detached way.  

"That's how he's proven his loyalty to you and the North. To me--" Arya's voice catches in spite of herself. "He brought my brother home." 

She can see Jaime redden out of the corner of her eye. "It wasn't--" 

"In doing so, he paid a debt." Arya interrupts him. Jaime Lannister owes the Starks a great many debts, but when he'd shown up with Rickon and Osha riding behind him, Shaggydog loping along next to them, Bran had nodded and declared Jaime's debt to him paid. "I trust him with my life. You don't have to. You don't have to sup with him, or ride with him, or like him, but you will not harm him." 

"Rickon?" Jon draws Arya's attention away from Daenerys. "Baby Rickon is home?" 

"He's hardly a baby any more. He's almost as tall as Sansa." 

Jon laughs at that, and Arya can't help but smile at him.  

"And I am happy you have your brother back," Daenerys cuts through the joy like a blade. "But this man that you trust with your life is the reason I was exiled from my home. He is the reason Aegon and I have no fathers. I hardly believe that if I asked the same of you that you would allow him to live. That you would allow people responsible for causing you and your family unimaginable harm to live." 

"Perhaps you're right." Arya thinks of Walder Frey's blood, warm on her hands, of walking over the bodies of the Freys responsible for the Red Wedding. She thinks of Sandor Clegane and Sansa; Thoros of Myr and Lem Lemoncloak and her mother, of Lady Catelyn being brought back as a monster.  

 _She_ killed Lady Stoneheart, and Arya wonders if Daenerys would have been willing to do the same to the Mad King.  

"What was the purpose of the Dragonpit meeting if not to set aside our personal vendettas against those who have wronged us to face a greater evil? If we can't manage to do that, then we're no better than Cersei." 

 _And if we're going to be divided let me know now so I can head to King's Landing and finish my list._  

"So justice must wait until we defeat the army of the dead?" 

"You may seek your justice whenever you like, Your Grace. But you will not harm my people." 

Daenerys stares at her, as if waiting for her to break. "Very well then. Aegon, Jorah, we'll start back for Dragonstone immediately." She rises, turns on her heel. 

"No." 

Daenerys turns. "What?" 

"No." Jon moves to Arya's side. "I'm staying, Your Grace. My place is here." 

Daenerys presses her lips into a thin line, studying Jon. "Is it?" Her gaze drifts back to Arya. "Am I to believe that if Cersei was here as my advisor, you would not seek your vengeance?" 

 _If Cersei was here as your a_ _dvisor, she would be dead and nobody would know_. "No," Arya admits. "I would want to. Perhaps I'd even be successful. But I haven't been setting Southron lords on fire." 

Arya holds Daenerys' gaze and the other queen glares at her, but there's something beyond that. Something uneasy. "Should I have shown them mercy, then? After they refused to bend the knee to me? What would that have said about my word?" 

"There are a great many things between dragonfire and mercy, just as there are many shades of grey between black and white." 

"And what would you have done, if they had refused to bend the knee to you?" Daenerys seems genuinely curious, her question free from malice. 

"I don't know that I would have commanded them to kneel in the first place." She thinks of Gendry, and then the Brotherhood, what they'd intended for her so long ago. "Taken them captive, certainly. Fed them, tended their wounds. Let them see you're a better leader and a stronger commander than the one they followed before." She remembers Lady Stoneheart, how the loyalty her terrible vengeance had bought her made no matter in the end. "Cruelty does not make men loyal, it only makes them afraid. This land, these people, have known enough cruel and indifferent kings. And if they still wished to remain loyal to the Lannisters, well, you have captives to trade or ransom as you will. Highborn captives are always useful." 

For an instant, Arya thinks Jon is biting back a smile, but a second later his face is stern and solemn. And for a second—just a second—Arya wonders if the dragons will feast on _her_ tonight.  

"That is...wise counsel," Daenerys says, albeit grudgingly. "I have said it before—I do not wish to be Queen of the Ashes, and that requires a different touch than Meereen and Astapoor and Yunkai. I would have you remember, however, that I am _not_ more of the same as the Lannisters. I have not murdered innocent women and children for a throne." 

"Good." Arya sways hard, exhaustion and blood loss hitting her all at once. A strong hand wraps around her elbow, keeping her upright. She's mostly unsurprised to find Jon next to her, staring down with worry all over his face.  

"Your Grace," Brienne cuts in smoothly, stepping between the two queens. "My lady is weary from battle and wounded besides. She needs rest." 

Daenerys' eyes narrow slightly, as though contemplating arguing the point with Brienne before nodding. "Of course. We shall speak again on the morrow...Your Grace." 

Arya inclines her head. "Your Grace." 

A tentative understanding, perhaps, but still an understanding.  

Arya sees the smirk Jon quickly hides and gives the inside of his elbow a good strong pinch. 

**** 

Jon Snow looks the Mother of Dragons right in the eye as he leans forward and says, " _Fuck_ the Iron Throne." 

The disappointment is clear in her eyes, that uncanny purple so strange to Jon. Beautiful, but strange.  

"You would be a good king, Jon. You inspire loyalty--" 

"The same could be said of many." _Many,_ he says, but he thinks _Arya_.  

"If we marry, no one could challenge our claim to the Iron Throne." 

"A throne that I don't want?" He points out. "Your Grace, you are my aunt." 

"And Targaryens have wed brother to sister for thousands of years." 

Jon thinks of Jaime and Cersei Lannister and wonders if the people of Westeros will be quite so accepting of that tradition now. Dragons might make it more palatable, he supposes. And perhaps he would have considered it if the Starks had still been splintered. But they are here, they are in the North, in Winterfell. They aren't the family to him he thought they were, but that's not bad.  

 _It's better_ , says a voice in the back of his head that Jon pushes down as hard as he can. _Don't_ _be a fool._  

"We cannot keep putting off this discussion." 

"The battle against the dead is more important than the battle for the throne. You yourself have said you do not wish to be queen of the ashes." 

"Do not use my words against me." 

Jon bites back bitter words. They will gain him no quarter here. "Your Grace. I'm certain you're weary from our long journey and the battle. I shall leave you to rest." 

He bows and catches a glimpse of her eyes flashing. She knows what he is doing—that he won't ask her leave to go but nor can he demand it. She waves her hand at him. "Go, then. But we will speak on this again—and soon. _Aegon_." 

The name grates but he still gets to leave. It's an exchange Jon is willing to make.  

He finds his way to Arya's tent without getting lost this time, though it does help that he catches sight of Podrick and follows him most of the way. Jon keeps to the shadows as much as he can—he'd spoken to the men before and has no desire to be waylaid now.  

"My Lord," Dacey Mormont smiles down at him as he runs right into her. "Is it Lord, or Grace?" 

"Just lord, Lady Mormont." 

Dacey snorts. "Jon or Aegon?" 

"Jon." 

She looks him up and down, and Jon has the distinct impression he is being weighed and measured. "You might be a dragon, but you still have winter in your bones." 

"The North remembers." 

"That it does." Dacey slaps him on the shoulder, grinning now. "She'll be glad to see you."  

And with that, she disappears into the shadows, leaving Jon to stand awkwardly at the entrance of the tent, unsure of how to enter until someone mutters, "Oh, for the love of the seven," and Brienne of Tarth reaches past the tent flap to pull him in. "If you lurk about a Queen's pavilion you're like to get stabbed by someone who thinks you are there to kill her," the tall woman informs him, steadying hand on his shoulder as he gets his feet under him. 

A glance at Arya leaves him elated and worried. She looks wan, a faint sheen of sweat on her brow, but her smile is bright and warms him as the memory of her laughter once did. She moves to rise-- 

"Your Grace," Brienne raises a hand and stalls Arya's rise, "you need to stay off of your leg." 

Arya's smile disappears. "Of course. Wise council." 

Jon suddenly feels as awkward and ungainly as a boy. "Your Grace," he offers a bow. 

Arya's laugh shatters the tension. "Don't be stupid, Jon. Come here." She opens her arms to him and he rushes to her, falling clumsily into an embrace. 

There are no lords or dragon queens to appease, no appearances to be kept up in the presence of a Queensguard, and Jon allows himself this moment. A moment to not be anyone in particular as he holds Arya and realizes that no number of letters from Sansa—no scrolls from Arya herself—could have fully convinced him that she was truly alive. He's had hours to think about it, and even now he isn't certain he dares to believe. 

"I can't believe It's you," they say at the same time, and Jon pulls back, laughing. "I truly can't." 

He looks at her, then, really looks at her. He takes in the sadness in her eyes, the darkness just on the edges. For an instant, he thinks it takes over, but she blinks and she's his Arya again. The moment, whatever it is, good or bad, Jon doesn't know, is broken by Tormund barreling into the tent, laden with food.  

"There you are, Wolf Queen," he says with an air of triumph. "Told you he would come, didn't I?" 

Arya rolls her eyes and Jon can't help but laugh.  

"Did you like your list o' titles, then?" Tormund asks after food has been passed around. "Thought I did well." 

"Did I really need quite so many?" 

"The Dragon Queen's got a list o' names as long as my co--" Jon glares at the man and Tormund scoffs. "You think the queen ain't heard o' cocks before?" 

The blood rushes to Jon's face and Arya shrieks with laughter. 

"Jon," she says, once she has calmed from her mirth. "I wasn't Arya for years and years. People don't often treat you like a lady if you aren't one." 

Jon can tell she means this answer to be comforting but it isn't, not at all. She's gone through so much since they last saw one another. He should have been able to protect her—how, he doesn't know, but he should have. Perhaps if he'd left the wall to join Robb—perhaps-- 

"Don't," her voice breaks through his swiftly-darkening thoughts, her hand light on his cheek. "We're together now, and that's what's important." 

Jon tries to lighten the mood again. "So, Tormund. This list of titles that you gave my--" he falters for a moment. "My sister. How did you come up with them? The Ghost of Harrenhal?" 

"A woman of many faces needs many names." Tormund earns himself a glare, which he ignores.  

"Tormund bores easily," Arya shrugs. She doesn't seem uncomfortable, but deep down, in his primal core, Jon knows she doesn't like the turn of the conversation. "He changes how he styles me every other day. Some of them are good, but sometimes I think Tormund Tall-talker simply enjoys the sound of his own voice." 

"I _know_ Tormund enjoys the sound of his own voice. How many names do you have for her?" 

Tormund shrugs. "I lose count. Let me see, there's Changer of Faces, She of Oysters, Daughter of Stone, She of the Strange Pack, Weasel of Harrenhal," Tormund lists off. "Squab of the Hollow Hill, Water Dancer, Dancing Master, Faceless Princess, Night Wolf, She-Wolf, Winter Wolf, Maiden Wolf, Leader of Wolves--" 

"He enjoys the wolf ones," Arya confides. It's there, again. She seems perfectly at ease, her shoulders relaxed and a faint smile on her lips, but Jon is certain she isn't.  

"Sister of the Brotherhood," Tormund continues as if Arya hadn't spoken. "The Stark-Across-the-Sea, Warg, The Blind Stark of Braavos, The First Sword of Winterfell, Justice of the Red Wedding, Freybane, Scourge of the Twins--" 

"That's enough, Tormund," Jon interrupts, his eyes on Arya. Each name Tormund says is a door slammed shut, closing her off from him more and more. "How do you know so much about my cousin?" 

"He gossips like a fishwife," Arya says, her voice light. 

"I watch. I listen. Don't need to be no wolf to do that." 

**** 

Arya's leg is getting worse. They have been waylaid by a sudden snowstorm and have been three days on the road to Winterfell. There's nothing more to be done until they reach Winterfell and a maester, but even then Arya's not certain if anything can be done for a wound of this nature. Jon knows, even though she hasn't told him, and he tries to distract her from the pain by questioning her about Tormund's names for her. 

"She of Oysters?" 

"I sold oysters in Braavos." 

"You did not." 

"I did! _Oysters, clams, and cockles_!" Arya shouts, earing glares from some of the nearby Glover men. "When I was eight, I begged enough money to buy my first bucket of oysters." She feels dreamy as she recounts the tale, for a short while becoming someone else. "I sold that bucket and made enough money to buy two more. It took a while, but I finally saved enough to buy myself an oyster cart." 

She blinks, and for a moment she is Cat, the taste of the sea in her mouth, the briny smell of her oyster cart all around her.  

"Arya," he says, and yes, that's who she is, and the man who says her name has sadness behind his smile, and she will be gone before she can make it go away. 

At night, her wolf dreams are fragmented. She will be running with her pack one moment; the next moment her senses feel dulled-unable to smell like the wolves though her vision is sharper. The sky calls to her and each morning she wakes up more disoriented than the last.  

There's nothing to be done for the pain, so she lets Jon distract her with questions about all of the titles Tormund has given her. The list is long, in part because Tormund seems to believe that if he gives her enough names, remembering who she is will be easier. Put enough handles on a thing, and when you reach for it you're bound to grab one.  

 _Warg_ is the one Jon asks her about this morning.  

"I do, too," he tells her quietly. "The free folk knew, and I've met others. He could warg into birds and shadowcats and bears." 

"Smaller animals are easier," she comments, and Jon gives her a startled look.  

"I usually only ever warg with Ghost," he says. "Bran?" 

"Birds, of course. And Summer. He says Rickon is half-wild, almost one with Shaggydog." 

"So your wolf pack--?" Jon trails off and looks around them. The pack isn't near—Nymeria ranged them far to try and find more meat—but Arya understands what he's asking.  

"I can, with some of them. Usually just Nymeria. I didn't start doing it on purpose, but when you're no one, it's easier to become _something._ Cats. A kraken that attacked my ship on my way back from Braavos." She suppresses a shudder at that memory. The kraken was huge, and _hungry_ , with a mind so different from Nymeria's or even the cats onboard the ship. "Ravens, on occasion. Easy to get information from a raven, if a maester reads scrolls aloud. Between Bran and I, we have a few that we've trained to come to Winterfell before any other keep." 

Bran and Arya had taken it upon themselves to see if Sansa was a warg, too.  

Well. Bran _knew_ Sansa was a warg, but couldn't explain to her the _hows_ of it any more than Arya could articulate just how she can tell when someone was lying—she just knows.  

But Sansa is no stranger to becoming someone else, and Arya could walk her farther down that path to becoming _something_ else. It would have been easier with Lady, but Nymeria had brought the sisters a runty little pup that Sansa fell in love with immediately. She couldn’t warg as long as Bran and Arya, but it was a start. 

"I--" Jon shifts in his saddle, as if to check for eavesdroppers. "I've warged with Rhaegal. Not on purpose, the first time. It was like the wolf dreams, only it was a dragon dream—it was before I knew I was a Targaryen," he answers her question before she can ask it.  

"What's it like?" 

"Different," he says after a moment of thinking. "Dragons are instinctual, like the direwolves. They can't smell as well, though, but they do recognize the smell of their own, those who have the blood of the dragon in them. They hunt by sight—they're so intelligent, Arya. It's incredible." 

Jon's whole demeanor changes when he talks about them. He seems to glow—no, to burn. He makes it easy to forget the pain in her leg for a while.  

**** 

It's strange, to hear Arya speak of some of her other names. If Jon hadn't known her since she was born, he might believe some of the stories.  

No. He'd believe _all_ of them. Some of them he half-believes anyway, it's been so long since they've seen one another. Each name unravels part of the mystery of Arya—blinded for a time; the most skilled swordsman he's seen; a warg, just like him and Bran; the daughter of Lady Stoneheart--but there are some names he only asks about when they are alone in her tent, her injured leg stretched between them. 

"Freybane?" 

Her answering smile is a sharp, deadly thing. "Freybane, yes. I think Tormund also calls me the Scourge of the Twins." 

"And the Justice of the Red Wedding." 

"If only I'd known I was Robb's heir then," she muses. "That would have been nice to tell Walder Frey." 

"Did you kill him?" 

"Walder Frey?" 

Jon nods. 

"Yes. And all of his grown sons and grandsons who took part in the Red Wedding. There was a feast," she says. "Splendid food and the finest Arbor gold." 

"And winter came for house Frey," Jon finishes. He'd heard the tale—thirty-five Freys dead at the Twins, a wolf wearing Walder Frey's skin that ate the faces of his sons. 

"It was poison," her voice is soft, as if she can hear his thoughts. "For most of them, anyway. I killed his two oldest sons myself, and I stood over Walder as he died." The laughs she utters as she looks at Jon is mirthless. "I keep waiting." 

"For what?" 

"For when you finally learn something that makes you hate me." 

The truth of this is terrifying, and Jon is almost afraid to say it. He will, though—anything to chase away that look in her eyes. "I'll never hate you, Arya." 

"Our bannermen think the Brotherhood helped me," she continues. "There are rumors, but most people find them unbelievable, of course. And Tormund does his part by repeating them." 

Jon almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Tormund, walking about, telling everyone exactly what happened and nobody truly believing him because he is Tormund Tall-talker.  

"They think I killed some of them. A few even believe I slew Walder Frey himself. None of them think I killed them all, or that I'm faceless, or was blind, or a ghost." 

Arya doesn't talk much of her time in Braavos, but the closer they get to Winterfell, the more she reveals. She's told him of the faces, of the poisons, of her training, and it makes Jon ache in a way he doesn't fully understand. 

**** 

Arya stands outside her tent, eyes skyward. The cold hurts her leg; the heat from the fire hurts her leg. There's a wrongness to the wound that she can't put into words, so she doesn't. No one traveling with them has magic at their disposal—the only person who might be able to help her is Bran, and they are still more than a day away from Winterfell. 

She's probably going to lose the leg or her life. It should be a terrifying thought, but all she feels is regret that she won't be able to help in the coming battle, that she will have been with Jon so little. It's not death that frightens her—death is an old friend—but what she leaves undone.  

Her eyes drift closed and for a moment she tastes char, could swear she feels the wind rushing past her and sees the ground far below. 

"They're beautiful," Arya says when the soft footsteps stop. The dragons circle overhead, their flight a hypnotizing comfort.  

"I know." Daenerys moves to Arya's side, a gentle pride on her face as she looks at her children. "They like the cold. I didn't think they would." 

Drogon is the most visible in the grey sky, snapping his jaws at what looks like nothing—Viserion blends into the clouds better than his brothers.  

"The Iron Throne is mine," Daenerys says. "The Seven Kingdoms are mine by right. I like the number seven." 

"It is an auspicious number," Arya agrees, not understanding at all what Daenerys is getting at.  

"When the Greyjoys came to me in Meereen, I spoke to Asha Greyjoy about the Iron Islands. She wishes to rule them. Her brother Theon supports her claim." Daenerys turns to Arya. "Meereen, Yunkai, and Astapoor are free cities, not ruled by me. The Seven Kingdoms are mine as they will never be Cersei's because my father was _murdered_ by usurpers." 

 _There it is._ _Usu_ _r_ _pers_ _._  

"My father was mad, this I know. He did not love his people nor they him. You, though. You love your people, and they love you. That is something he did not have, nor Joffrey, nor Cersei. When I liberated the slave cities, the people followed me. They called me _mhysa_. I did not ask them to, or command them to. They chose to follow me. As the North has chosen to follow you.  

"You knew who I was when we met, and though I did not know your face, I knew of you as well. You are loved by your people, Daughter of the North, and they _chose_ you. I would not take that away from them, Arya of House Stark. All I require--" she catches herself then, with a small smile and a shake of her head. "All I _ask_ is that you support my claim to the Iron Throne as I cast off the Lioness." 

Arya waits, but it seems Daenerys is done. "You're not going to command me to bend the knee?" 

"Well, if you wanted to, I wouldn't object." She smiles. Not the small, courtly thing she wears around the others, but something soft and genuine. "I have wise counsel, and I was reminded that you, too, have fought and suffered and traveled far to return home. We are not unalike, you and I. I would have us support one another." 

 _Friends,_ Arya realizes. _She wants to be friends._  

"I have stayed with you and your men as you traveled so that I could learn. And what I have learned is that the North may be mine by right, but the people who live here are yours by choice. I would rather you be with me than against me." 

 _An alliance. This I can do before I die._ "Be a better queen than Cersei. Help us defeat the army of the dead, and yes, I shall support your claim. The North will support your claim." 

"Your Grace, I mean no disrespect, but I've met Cersei," Daenerys pins her with her bright purple eyes. "A saddlebag would be a better queen than her." 

Arya laughs. 

**** 

They make it through the gates of Winterfell when Arya falls from her horse. 

Daenerys, of all of them, is the first to react, the first to Arya's side, calling for a healer, a maegi, _anyone_. It's more than Jon can do, horror rendering him as silent as Ghost. For all the differences Daenerys has had with Arya, she handles her with care, keeping Arya's head off of the cold ground. Daenerys' face is drawn and pale and Jon remembers her husband, Khal Drogo, her sun-and-stars, and how the Dothraki do not respect anyone who cannot ride ahorse.  

Jon and Jaime reach the queens next. Arya is pale and clammy, skin cold to the touch, the thigh that the White Walker injured as cold as ice, a cloying sweet smell coming from her bandages. How had he missed this? Had Arya hidden this from him, or had he been so distracted by her presence that he'd remained willfully ignorant? 

Jon swallows down the hatred he feels for himself to pick Arya up, cradling her in his arms. 

Jon carries her to his chambers--since he doesn't know where hers are--and thanks the gods that Winterfell has a maester—thanks all the gods and more when Sam, of all people, comes puffing in after Wolkan.  

"She was wounded by one of the White Walkers' blades," Jon tells them. "The ice blades." 

"Ice blades?" The maester looks lost, something Jon finds horrifying. He cuts away the black-stained bandages and reveals the jagged, festering wound. Sansa has arrived, and she and Pod recoil from the sight and smell.  

"We need to remove the leg," Wolkan says, and Jaime Lannister, of all people, lunges at the maester.  

" _No_ ," he growls. "You will _fix her_ and her leg." His hand squeezes Wolkan's throat.  

" _Jaime_." Brienne puts a hand on his shoulder, steel plate clanging against mail glove. A fraught moment later, Lannister releases Wolkan. 

"If it is a wound from the Others, perhaps what we use to fight them can be used to fight—this," Sam suggests. "Heated dragonglass—Valyrian steel—dragon's blood, if we could get any." 

All eyes turn to Daenerys. 

"Dragonblood?" She says, as if she was discussing dinner and not the life or death of Arya. "You want me to kill one of my children for a queen I hardly know?" 

Sam utters a soft laugh. "Your Grace, we won't need all of their blood. Look how small Arya is compared to one of your sons." 

"How much blood then?" 

"I couldn't say, your grace, not without knowing what dragon blood is like." 

Daenerys turns to Jon, her eyebrow raised, almost as if to ask, _and what will you give me in return for your sister's life?_  

Jon gnashes his teeth and forces himself to remain silent, to not answer the unspoken question with _I'll do whatever you want, just help us save her._  

"Well," Daenerys says after a long silence. "If you can get one of them to allow you to take blood without killing you, you may have some." 

Jon's blood boils. She doesn't know that he can warg, she doesn't know about the dragon dreams, and she's willing to let Arya die.  

She won't die.  

Jon braces himself against a bedpost, his forehead against the smooth wood, _reaches_ for the dragons. 

Viserion is the closest, and Jon shows him, asks him, to land outside the walls of Winterfell. He blinks, back in his own head again, and nods to Sam, who begins gathering things, before going out to meet the beast. 

Heat pours from Viserion, melting snow off of trees that will turn to ice as soon as he takes off again. Again, Jon reaches, closing his eyes and slipping out of his own skin as easy as breathing. 

The dragon's thoughts are ordered differently than Rhaegal's, and different from Ghost. Where Ghost acts on instinct and impulse, the dragons are more methodical. 

Viserion converses with Jon in the way Rhaegal does, images and physical sensations, _little human-wolf, no. Dragon-wolf. Little human-wolf?_  

Arya, Jon realizes with a start. Viserion is asking about Arya. _Little human-wolf._  

Jon pulls up the memory of Arya lying in her sickbed, cold to the touch and sweating, the wound in her leg black and stiff.  

Viserion's fear fills Jon's lungs and pushes behind his eyes. Emptiness, loneliness, the idea of Viserion. _Gone forever little wolf gone? No! Help? I? Help?_  

 _Yes,_ Jon thinks with relief. _Yes, you can help. We need..._ blood, Jon thinks. He imagines a giant, hot drop of dragon blood, welling from under a scale. 

 _Gone forever? Me?_ Viserion's fear tastes different now.  

 _No,_ Jon hastens. _Not all blood. Small. Might...pain. Small pain._  

 _Y_ _es, do now,_ Viserion thinks at him, extending one scaly leg. 

Jon tries to push as much thanks and love to the dragon as he can before slipping back into his own body. "Viserion says yes." 

The snow crunches under her boots as Daenerys steps beside him, giving him a long look before gazing at her child. "Do it, then. Be quick about it." 

Jon moves forward, Sam behind him with a basin the size of his head. Jon strokes the Viserion's creamy scales before pulling out Arya's Valyrian steel dagger. "I'm sorry," he tells the dragon, before sliding the blade under the edge of one of the scales.  

Viserion's blood steams as the cold winter air touches it. It's thicker than Jon imagined, and a brighter red. He'd thought it would be a deeper color, almost black, not this bright, vivid crimson. It gathers slowly on the edge of the scale, a stark contrast against the pale cream and gold. Sam presses the stoneware bowl against Viserion's leg and the droplet oozes into the bowl, filling it near halfway. Another minute and a second droplet fills the bowl. 

"That's all we can take now," Sam says. "Thank you, Viserion." 

Jon presses against the scale to stop the flow of blood and touches against the dragon's mind. _Thank you, brother._  

 _Done?_  

 _Yes, done._  

 _Oh thought,_ Viserion cobbles together images and feelings—an arrow grazing his scales, the irritating scratch of his brothers' talons— _not hurt—_ an image now of a bird, pecking at the dragons, flicked away by a tail, like, like...like a horse flicking away a fly. An annoyance.  

Jon nearly laughs as he settles back into his own bones.  

He goes to help Sam shoulder the basin, full of scalding hot dragon blood, making their trek back to Arya slower than Jon would like. 

While they have been gone, much has happened in his chambers. Sansa and Wolkan have gathered salves and medicinal herbs, stoked the fire and set water to boil; removed Arya's armor and placed her on top of a clean white sheet.  

Sansa sits by Arya's head, dabbing at her face with a damp cloth, but when Sam and Jon enter, she rushes out of the way. 

Jon's desk has been cleared and that is where they set the bowl while Sam checks the supplies Sansa has managed to find. He is a whirl of black wool, in constant motion, claiming Jaime Lannister's shield, pouring some boiling water in it to clean it before placing it under Arya's leg, like a large bowl.  

"My lady," Sam turns to Sansa. "A thin broth, perhaps, or honeyed water, to feed the Queen once we are done?" 

Something passes between Sam and Sansa and she gives him a small, firm nod. "Of course. Podrick, Tormund, accompany me. And you, Ser Mormont, and Lady..." Sansa touches Missandei lightly on the arm. "With me, please." 

"I will not leave my Queen," Jorah rumbles, and Sansa goes hard and sharp as dragonglass.

"You _will_ accompany me." 

"She's right, Ser Jorah," Daenerys cuts in smoothly. "The fewer people, the better. Go with Lady Sansa to make sure the men we traveled with are well." 

Jorah bows his head and moments later the room is half empty. 

Sam mops his brow, already sweating, before wrapping wool around the basin and taking it in both hands. Wolkan is by his side, supporting the bottom as slowly, slowly, they tip it over Arya's leg. It seems like a small eternity until a small stream of Viserion's blood starts to pour out.  

Sam directs the steaming red stream over Arya's black-edged wound. She has not regained consciousness since she fell from her horse but the moment Viserion's scalding blood touches her flesh she screams. It is a terrible, unearthly shriek, a sharp noise that reminds Jon of the sound the blades of the White Walkers make when they shatter. 

Her leg steams as the dragon's blood forces _something_ out of the wound, thin pale liquid, almost like water—like _ice_ —that turns black as it mixes with the dragon blood, thick and heavy like tar. A sickly-sweet smell fills the room, a smell of poisonous rot and decay. 

Still Sam pours the blood. High on her thigh, above the wound; below her knee, past the wound, making certain the infection or curse does not spread. Arya shudders and convulses as more bile is expelled from her injury, her body jerking so violently that Lannister rushes to her side to pin her shoulders to the bed so Sam may continue. 

Jon feels stuck to the floor as Sam continues—it seems as if he has a never-ending supply of Viserion's blood, and the shield below her leg is nearly full of black blood and ice blood and dragon blood, mixing and separating. 

Sweat streams from Arya's pallid face as Sam finally pours the last of the blood over her. The sweet smell is overpowered by a metallic tang. The smell of clean blood. 

Jon doesn't know if it's hope or if Arya does already look better.  

"She doesn't look so pale," Daenerys murmurs to Jon, her hand squeezing his. When did that happen? Did he reach for her? 

"She look pale all the time. How can one tell?" Grey Worm says in a tone that is probably not meant to be heard by Jon. 

"She looks better," Daenerys nods as she says it, almost as if she's trying to reassure herself as much as Jon. Sam nods and Grey Worm and Brienne take the shield out from under her leg.  

"Take that to the maester's quarters," Sam says. "We should study it." 

Jon opens and closes his sword hand. _She has to be all right. She has to._  

Sam and Maester Wolkan rinse the wound, packing it with herbs that smell faintly spicy, before binding it with strips of clean linen. They wash their hands in a basin of clean water, moving so slowly Jon wants to scream. Sam places the back of his hand on Arya's forehead before moving aside so Wolkan can do the same. More murmured words and a nod from Sam. "Her fever's broken. You can--" 

Jon crosses to Arya in two strides, pushing her hair away from her face with a shaking hand. "She'll be all right?" 

"I don't know, Jon." Sam puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. "This is something none of us have ever encountered. But if anyone could survive this, it's her." 

Jon nods his understanding, sinking to the bed next to her, drawing furs over her small frame. "I'll tend to her. Let Sansa and my brother— _her_ brothers know." 

"Blood of my blood," Daenerys murmurs, standing across from him. "Blood of the dragon." 

"Khaleesi?" Grey Worm steps closer to Daenerys. 

"Water," she says briskly, her earlier softness put aside. "Build the fire higher, Lannister. Make certain the water is still warming, boil it if it isn't. Grey Worm, fetch the Lady Sansa and Missandei, tell them we need clean cloths." 

They go to do as she bid. Brienne disappears with the maesters and the blood; Grey Worm returns with Missandei. "Lady Sansa is with the Lords of Winterfell," she tells Jon. "The one who does not walk seems...happy." 

Jon's knees almost give way. If Bran is happy, then surely Arya is well, will be well, will recover. Missandei walks towards them with a basin of warm water with an armful of cloths, and it is all Jon can do to not snatch the items from her hands.  

His hand trembles as he dips a rag into the water, gently wiping at Arya's forehead. He takes care around the faint scar near her hairline. He'll have to ask her about it when she wakes, that and a hundred other things. She has to wake. She has to heal, they haven't had nearly enough time together-- 

Jon forces his thoughts away from this path as he pats her skin dry so that she doesn't catch chill. He is so absorbed in not thinking, in caring for Arya, that it is only once he has moved to her neck that he remembers the others in the room. 

"You love her," Daenerys observes. Jon's gaze darts to Lannister, who is standing near the window, to Brienne and Jorah, who have returned, standing near the door, to Grey Worm and Missandei and back to Queen Daenerys.  

"Of course I do." Jon lifts Arya's head off of the pillow so he can clean the back of her neck, her hair damp with sweat.  

"Jon." Daenerys places a hand over his, forcing him to look at her. "You _love_ her." 

"She is my Queen." 

Ser Jorah gives a very deliberate cough. 

**** 

Arya feels weak and hollow when she finally wakes, and Sansa throws herself on top of Arya, weeping. This, truth be told, is how Arya knows how scared Sansa was. Her older sister is harder now, in many ways. She is not prone to tears, and she has never been prone to excess emotion on Arya's behalf.  

Perhaps that's unfair.  

Whatever their differences, Arya's injury seems to have lessened their import. Sansa stays by her side as she sleeps fitfully, as Arya gits her teeth through the pain and itch of her leg healing. Sansa helps change her bandages, listens attentively as Maester Wolkan or Sam tell her how her healing is progressing. Sansa only leaves to tend to her own needs if Jon or Bran is with Arya. 

And Arya will never admit it, but she sleeps best when Jon is near.  

**** 

Arya leans heavily on Jon as they make their way through the halls of Winterfell. Sam has declared that her leg has healed enough for her to start walking on it again, and it is a struggle. The newly-knit together flesh of her thigh strains in protest, and it feels as though her leg is filled with water rather than muscle.  

Jon takes her weight easily enough, though she tries not to lean on him too much.  

Her Queensguard has been warned off letting her walk on her own after Sam found her in a puddle of her own blood at the bottom of some stairs after her leg gave out during her water dancing exercises. Jon is the only one who doesn't tell her to not do them—he makes certain she doesn't do them too long, and he places himself between Arya and the floor if she falls, but she supposes this is as fair a trade as she will get.  

Ofttimes they talk as they walk, about the winter town, about training the Northmen to fight, about arming them, about the wights, about Cersei. Sometimes, like today, they simply enjoy each other's company in silence.  

Davos rounds a corner, hands full, his footfalls echoing on the stone. "Your Grace," he says. "The Blackfish has arrived, and your council waits in the Great Hall." 

"Thank you, Lord Davos," she offers him a rare smile.  

"Your Grace," Davos bows and extends his hands, a thin, bone-white length of wood in them. "Your brother Bran was telling me of how you learned to fight with a staff, and given your current condition, I thought it might be useful." 

He hands the staff to her. It is as tall as she, with soft black leather wrapped around it about a foot from the top. Around the leather has been looped a band of simple beads in red and blue--Tully colors. Carved into the wood are wolves, running free, howling at a moon. 

"Lord Davos," she says, her voice thick. "This is exquisite work." 

"Thank you, Your Grace." 

She eases her weight on to it, taking a step away from Jon and Davos. The weirwood holds her easily; more than that, it feels _right_ to have it in her hand. Arya trails her fingers over the leather, surprised to find letters stamped into the hide.  

"Lady Sansa was kind enough to provide the leather," Davos answers her unasked question. "And the beadwork. Hands to clumsy for that sort of work, myself."  

"Of course," Arya murmurs. _Winter is coming_ is the first phrase, and underneath it is _valar_ _dohaeris_.  

All men must serve. 

**** 

Arya's Small Council is gathered in the Great Hall, the only place that can hold large enough tables for ledgers, maps, and raven scrolls while Winterfell is being rebuilt.  

Davos' presence is not a surprise, nor is Bran's, but Mance's is. Jon recognizes Thoros of Myr and Harwin from Arya's stories. Blackfish is recognizable by his garb. Dacey Mormont is seated next to a Manderly. The Queensguard hovers at the edges of the room, Lannister and Brienne and Podrick, even Sandor Clegane. 

"My lady sister?" Arya asks Clegane, once they are all seated.  

"Tending to other matters," he responds, staring at a place somewhere just above Arya's head, avoiding looking at her.  

"Why's he here?" Harwin nods to Jon. "Part of the Dragon Queen's court now, isn't he?" 

"He was our king once," Davos starts to argue, but Jon puts a hand on the man's arm. 

"I would never betray the North." 

Arya and Mance stare at each other, some conversation happening between them before Mance offers a small nod. 

"I know Jon would never betray the North," Arya says, smiling at him. "And I know Jon would never betray me. But," she raises a hand to forestall Manderly's objections. "He is not part of the Small Council." 

It takes Jon a moment to realize he is being dismissed and another moment to discover he doesn't like it at all. Still, he offers a stiff bow and a "by your leave, your grace." 

Before he turns to leave, Mance catches his eye, and Jon can't help but feel a faint touch of dread at what Mance might say to Arya. 

He decides Winterfell is too confining at the moment and leaves, taking a horse to the wolfswood where Nymeria and Ghost greet him. 

Nymeria lets loose a resounding howl and a few minutes later, Viserion swoops into view. The earth shakes under Jon's feet as the dragon lands in a clear patch of land, snow melting underfoot. The direwolves lope towards the dragon, circling with faint suspicion until Nymeria darts forward and licks the dragon's nose.  

A strange crackling sounds from Viserion's chest as Ghost approaches, touching his nose to the dragon's. The crackling noise gets louder, faster, and Viserion pushes off from the ground and launches into the sky. 

Purring, Jon realizes. The sound was almost like a cat purring.  

**** 

Arya can't help but be glad her council did not include Jon today. She trusts him, to be sure, and her people trust him as well, but she is glad he was not there for her council to discuss the prospects of a marriage alliance with the Reach, among other things.  

Jon's absence at the meeting also gives her an excuse to visit his chambers later that evening, to seek his advice and to let him know that he will be allowed to sit in on the occasional meeting of the Small Council when they speak about Daenerys. Among other things. 

"I was speaking to Mance," Arya says as the fire starts to die in the hearth. She stands and stares at the embers, wondering what Thoros and Melisandre see when they gaze into the flames. "He told me something strange." 

"Well, he is a wildling." 

"He told me you died, not for the wildlings, but for me." She pins Jon with a look. "Is this true?" 

"No." 

"You're a terrible liar, Jon." It's not even subtle—he clenches his sword hand when he lies. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell Sansa?" 

"There wasn't a reason to tell Sansa," he finally admits. "And I didn't want you to--" he struggles for words, with what he wants to say. "I didn't want to burden you." 

"You _died_ for me! And you didn't want to tell me because you feared it would hurt my feelings?" 

His face falls, and with it, Arya's stomach. What if she has it wrong? 

"Or you didn't tell me because you did not want me to assume an affection that you no longer have. We are not family as you thought then, and now--" her voice doesn't break, she has far too much control of her body for that, but her mind cannot bear to think it, so she cannot say it. 

This breaks through Jon's stillness. He crosses to her in three strides, kneeling at her side. "Arya." He takes her hand in his, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles as he looks at her so earnestly. "Arya, I will always, _always,_ love you. Never doubt that. I told you once I could never hate you. What must I do so you believe me?" 

 _Hold me_ , Arya thinks wildly. Jon is a familiar stranger, and she wants things from him that she should not. He loves her as the sister he knew years ago, and this _must_ be enough for her.  

As if sensing her thoughts, Jon takes a step closer to her, so that he towers over her, reaching out to cup her cheek in his scarred hand. "My Queen." He strokes her cheekbone with his thumb, reverence in his eyes. Arya's heart catches in her throat and stays there. "You are--" 

But what she is, she will never know because at that moment Sam bursts into the room, a scroll clutched in his hand.  

"A raven from Highgarden," he pants, thrusting it into Arya's hand.  

"How did you know she would be here?" Jon asks as she unrolls it. 

"She wasn't in her chambers, where else would she be?" Sam looks as bewildered by Jon's question as Jon is by Sam's presence. "Your Grace. Mace Tyrell--" 

Arya reads the words, and then again, scarcely believing them. Supplies. _I do not believe you_. Food. _But I will support your claim._ Wool. _Highgarden owes you a debt._  

Almost in spite of herself, Arya smiles. "Thank you, Sam. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to see my Master of Whisperers." 

Arya nearly flies down the hall, scarcely using her staff to support her, as she approaches Sansa's chambers, rapping sharply on her door.  

"You look well, Your Grace," Sansa dips into a swift curtsey before embracing Arya. "I was so worried." 

"I know," Arya says, hugging her sister as best she can with the woman being near a foot taller than she. "But I'm on the mend. You were not at the meeting of the Small Council. Is all well?" 

"Yes, of course!" Sansa pairs her lie with a smile.  

"Sansa." Arya allows herself to be a sister for a few moments, not a queen. "You've been unhappy these past weeks, and refuse to tell me why. You don't have to, I'm not commanding it but—well, Sansa, what would make you happy?" 

Sansa doesn't have time to breathe, much less think, before she responds with "Margaery Tyrell. My little birds tell me she and her brother Loras have vanished from King's Landing and I was—she was always kind to me." 

What was it Clegane said one night—something about roses and birds? He was right. Arya laughs. This only serves to anger Sansa, who goes stone-faced and still. 

"This is not a jape," Sansa scowls before schooling her features. " _Your Grace."_  

"Margaery Tyrell, of Highgarden?" Arya asks again, still laughing. "Oh, Sansa, I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you, truly, it's just—" Arya stops herself. "Change into something simpler, and I’ll show you something in the Winter Town." 

**** 

Arya and Sansa don dark cloaks and slip out of the castle, Brienne their only companion. As they walk, Arya informs Sansa about the raven they have received from Highgarden. Sansa knew Mace was no longer supporting Cersei's claim to the throne, but all of her information told her it was because Loras and Margaery were in all likelihood dead. Neither had been seen in King's Landing for months. And then Arya starts a different tale, one about a smith and a smuggler and a singer, about a boat full of flowers brought right here, to Winterfell.  

Sansa can understand what her sister is telling her, but part of her refuses. What it means—what it _could_ mean—as Arya knocks on the door of a small house and stands aside, gently shoving Sansa in front of the door. 

She's here. Right in front of Sansa. Bundled in furs and scarcely recognizable, but nothing can hide her warm brown eyes and sweet smile. And behind her-- 

"Ser Loras?" 

"Sansa?" Margaery peers at her. "We thought—the queen said--" 

"The queen says lots of things," the queen in question says, shoving Sansa into the small house and following close behind. "Before she knew how much her sister cared for the Rose of Highgarden." 

Sansa blushes at her sister's bluntness. "Your Grace, forgive my sister--" 

"Lady Sansa, I'm not a queen any more. Cersei annulled my marriage to Tommen." 

"So that you'd be easier to kill," Loras finishes the thought.  

"Every man is easy to kill once you know how to do it," Arya says, an offhand remark as she runs her hands over a rough-hewn table.  

"Your Grace," Loras breaks the ensuing silence. "I wouldn't recommend you say that in front of your subjects." 

"You're advisors," Arya rebuffs him. "Not merely subjects." 

"We heard you were taken ill," Loras continues when it becomes apparent that Margaery is not going to chime in.  

For a few minutes, Sansa turns off the part of her mind that is constantly aware, that is always looking out for the next play, the next person she can manipulate, the next enemy or ally. Margaery Tyrell's hand is stroking her cheek, and that is all that's important.  

**** 

The meeting of the Small Council the next day is not small at all.  Sansa has returned, the Tyrells are present, Jaime and Brienne, Blackfish and Gendry, Sam and Mance and Davos and Dacey. 

Jon. 

There is much and more to discuss—how best to ally with the Dragon Queen, how the weapons to fight the Others are progressing, supplies, what news they have of Cersei. 

Arya's coronation. 

"It's dragonglass," Gendry tells her, setting the crown in front of her. "The pieces were too small to be of use, even as arrowheads." 

The work is good—the crown of Northern kings is too rough for any work done on it to ever be called exquisite—but a careful hand wrought these changes. The dragonglass fits well with the sharp spikes of the crown, alternating swordpoints done in the slick stone. Iron and bronze and dragonglass, the things that will defend the North.  

Even on the crown, the dragonglass is sharp. Arya runs a finger along a point, opening a line of red on her hand. She wipes a bit of blood on each of the blades, four of dragonglass and five of iron. _Iron and bronze and blood and fire_ , she thinks. _These will protect the North_.  

When she glances up, she sees only two people saw what she did—Jaime, of course, who looks less than impressed—and Jon, a frown marring his brow. 

"We have no septon here," Arya says, though it feels as though someone else is speaking using her voice. _Robb wore this crown. Robb died for this crown._ "No sept or septas. The old gods have no priests and were we to find a servant of the Many-Faced God, it would not be my first instinct to let them crown me."  

 _More than likely they would kill me._ Ser Davos shuffles his feet as Arya turns the circlet of bronze in her hands. _No One should crown me,_ she thinks. _I'll just plop the crown on my own head and be done with it._  

But no—Sansa and Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys and _Bran_ , of all people, were in agreement: she must be crowned publicly, and if it must be in front of folk, then it may as well be a celebration. A chance, too, for Daenerys to curry favor with the North by feeding Northmen with the supplies she brought with her.  

"Your Grace, if I may—I don't think there's right answer as to who should set the crown on your head," Davos offers. 

"No, but there's certainly a wrong answer," she sighs. "Ser Jaime?" 

He doesn't move from his post by the door as he answers. "Yes, Your Grace?" 

"You carried this crown from the Riverlands, did you not?" 

"I did, Your Grace." His expression doesn't change but he's suspicious nonetheless.  

"Arya. _Queen_ Arya." Jon's voice is thick with displeasure, but the way he holds himself is something beyond disapproval. "That's a terrible idea." 

 _Jealousy_ , she realizes with a start. Jon is _jealous._  

"He's only got one hand, Jon." 

"He's a Lannister, and it's still a terrible idea." Jon says through gritted teeth. Everyone else is looking at them in varying degrees of bewilderment. Jon's always known what she was thinking—he doesn't as much anymore, but they've been apart for so long and changed so much that _any_ thing that he knows is a wonder. 

"He's only got one hand, and you could be his other." 

Jon's expression changes faster than a storm coming up on the sea. Dragonfire gentled to the soft blaze in a hearth. "Yes. Yes, that would--I'll do it. I think that will be the best way to do it. Sends a strong message." 

"Would one of you mind overmuch telling us what the message is?" Davos asks. 

"They've always been like this," Sansa mutters to their Uncle Blackfish. "Even as children, finishing each other's sentences." 

Jon looks to Arya, and she nods at him. He looks younger, the lines of worry that cross his features eased as he smiles.  

"Her Grace will be crowned by Ser Jaime and myself." 

"Forgive me, Your Grace," Sam leans forward. "I understand Jon, but why Ser Jaime?" 

"Yes," Jaime echoes. "Why Ser Jaime? Just because I carted the damn crown from the Riverlands doesn't give me claim to do anything with it." 

"You're a Lannister," Jon points out.  

"Thank you, I'd forgotten, what with all the lions emblazoned on my armor and banners." 

"You're a Lannister," Arya repeats. "You're from the South, and your sister sits the Iron Throne. Your brother is Hand to Queen Daenerys. You've pledged your life for mine, and if you crown me your queen, what does that say to Highgarden or the Westerlands?" 

"That I think Cersei's a bloody awful queen," Jaime snaps, before he realizes what he's said. "Ah. That she's a bloody awful queen, and her own brothers don't even think she's fit to serve." 

"And neither of you are trying to press your own claim to the throne," Sansa continues the thought. "It's not that either of you want to be king, it's that you don't trust Cersei. Jon's hands lay to rest any doubts our bannermen may have had about competing claims, and Jaime's hand shows that we are capable of allying with the South to our advantage. Very neatly done." Sansa gives Arya a satisfied nod, and Arya can't help but feel a faint burst of pride that she's impressed her sister and that Sansa approves. Arya might understand fighting and smallfolk, but Sansa understands the lords and the way Southroners play the game, and her approval is a comfort. 

"Or it could be a sign that the North is being manipulated by the Iron Throne." The Blackfish glares at Jaime. "That the Lannisters _gave_ you the throne." 

"That's an excellent point, Tully," Jaime snaps his fingers. "I should have nothing to do with this." 

"Why?" Arya's question cuts through the muttered conversations Jaime's words have provoked. "Why are you so loathe to tie yourself to House Stark and the North?" 

"Because I'm the Kingslayer!" Jaime looks half surprised by his own words. "To the South, the North, to everybody in the bloody room excepting Brienne and you, Your Grace, my words and oaths mean nothing. I have shit for honor, Your Grace, even your lady mother knew that." 

Arya sets the crown— _her_ crown—back on the table, and crosses to Jaime Lannister. 

She takes a deep breath, and exhales Arya Stark.  

"Jaime. Who am I?" Her voice is low so the lords will not hear her. 

"You're Arya Stark, First of her--" he looks at her then, really looks at her. "No one. You're no one." 

"Does No One care if you've killed a king?" 

"No? No." 

"Do you intend to kill Queen Arya?" 

"No." Stronger, more assured. 

" _Could_ you kill Arya Stark?" 

"No. I couldn't." 

No one nods. Jaime Lannister probably _could_ kill Arya Stark, given the right circumstances, but it wouldn't do to let him know that.  

Jaime Lannister looks comforted and she nods, and by the time No One has sat back down, she remembers what it is to be Arya Stark again. 

**** 

The Freys are coming.  

What's left of them. Bran offers this knowledge the same way he offers everything else he knows, with a solemn quietness. Jon watches Arya as Bran tells her, and she doesn't shudder or shrug. There is no tightness or nervousness about her. Bran may as well have told her that it was going to snow that afternoon.  

Sansa and Rickon wore their rage and indignation proudly, suggesting they deny the Freys entrance, that they let the snows devour them. Margaery Tyrell's hand on Sansa's arm quiets her, and Bran eventually leans close to Rickon, his lips moving quickly and Rickon settles. 

If Jon were any other person, he would think that the Freys coming to Winterfell meant nothing to Arya. 

But Jon isn't any other person, and he knows her. He knows her utter lack of response is just as telling as Sansa's anger and Rickon's rage.  

That evening, Arya slips into his room under cover of shadows, without the company of her guard. He only knows she is there when her weight settles on the edge of his bed. 

Her sigh echoes through the room and Jon reaches for her, his hand brushing her back and drifting upward until he can tangle his fingers in her hair. "The Freys?" 

"I don't want them here." She hesitates as she leans back, and Jon gives her hair an encouraging tug. She falls against him, her head resting on his ribs.  

It would be unseemly if they were caught like this, but no one will. Arya fades in and out of the shadows like she is one, and Jon understands the frustrations of her Queensguard and her ability to vanish. 

"Nobody wants them here," he reminds her. "Are you afraid?" 

"Why would I be afraid of them? I—they'll--" she struggles for words. The darkness lends Jon a certain boldness and he traces the scar across her forehead, back and forth, until she finds the words she needs. "The Freys make me think of the Red Wedding, of Robb and mother and Lady Stoneheart."  

Jon catches a tear trickling down her cheek. There is nothing he can say to soothe her, so he is silent, holding her.  

Arya leans into his touch and perhaps he imagines the kiss she presses to his hand. "I don't want the Freys here," she finally says. "But I can't imagine they will want to be here, either." 

"Arya?" 

"Bran says they are sending the last scions of their house. I'm not going to kill them," she snaps, interpreting his tension correctly. "I'm not a butcher." 

Realization dawn on Jon and he smiles. "You're going to take the Twins." 

She hums in assent.  

They lie in silence until Arya's breathing slows. Jon promises himself that he will not sleep, so that he can wake Arya in a few hours, but the nearness of her is too much for him—her warmth and weight—and the next thing he knows, it is dawn, and Arya is gone.  

Jon stretches and shakes off the feeling of disappointment that lingers, though he is loathe to say why. 

**** 

"Three thousand and five hundred men, my brother and mother among them," Arya says. The Queen in the North is surrounded by her bannermen, by Free Folk. Her council is seated with her, and even Daenerys is there. 

Small Arya may be, but the Freys shirk back. A dark storm is what she is, gray eyes flashing. The light from the torches glints dangerously off the obsidian points of her crown, and if anything it seems that her weirwood throne is amplifying the cold rage that rolls off her body in waves.  

"Karstarks," Arya reminds the Freys. "Umbers. Flints, Brackens, Slates. Pipers, Ryswells, Dustins. Tallharts, Smallwoods, Cerwyns. _My people."_ She rises, her strides long and fluid as she crosses to the Frey men.  

 _She_ _'s death_ , Jon realizes with a start. _That's what the Stranger looks like._  

"How many Freys did Arya Freybane kill?" She asks them. 

"Eight and—eight and thirty, Your Grace," one of them stammers. 

"Eight and thirty." Arya turns to her council. "What is three thousand five hundred less eight-and-thirty? I imagine it's still quite a lot." 

Sam moves his lips as he counts in his head, but Arya doesn't wait for the figure. She didn't want it, she's just trying to create as much tension as possible. She stands in front of the Freys, barely leaning on the staff Davos carved for her. "I think forty Freys against that many Northman is more than fair." 

"Forty, Your Grace?" 

"Well, there are the two of you," she points out. The men go even paler, which Jon hadn't thought possible. "But, you see, you have eaten my bread and my salt, and unlike your father, I cherish guest right. No harm shall come to you while you remain in Winterfell. Tell us where your families are, and we will send for them." 

"So you can kill them?" Frey swallows hard. 

"So your wives may join court and your children may become wards of Winterfell. I would have you send your girls—nieces, sisters, cousins, and daughters under the age of sixteen—to Winterfell as well. I would have them learn to defend themselves and when the time comes make them matches appropriate to their stations." 

Danwell Frey glares. "And what station will that be?" 

"That depends entirely on you, Lord Frey." The Blackfish rises from the high table. "And what amends you plan on making to the North." 

Danwell Frey spits in Arya's face. "Fuck the Starks. Fuck Winterfell." 

Lannister and Brienne are shouldering between the Queen and Danwell Frey, swords out and at his throat, while Arya hasn't moved. She doesn't look angry—she hasn’t even moved to wipe the spittle from her face.  

 _She had worse when she was blind, when she_ _was_ _Beth,_ Jon reminds himself. 

"Put away your swords," Arya tells her Guard. "Let it be known the fate of House Frey rested on the actions of Danwell Frey. I hereby strip House Frey of the Twins, and of all lands, incomes, and holdings that entails. Take these men." Glover and Umber take the Freys in hand and drag them from the hall.  

Jon crosses to Arya and wipes the spit from her face with a gentle hand, using the sleeve of his tunic to dry her skin.  

"Thank you, Lord Targaryen," she offers him a secret smile that makes Jon's stomach flip before stepping back from him. "Ser Jaime?" 

"Yes, Your Grace?" 

"Kneel, ser."  

Jaime does, bewildered. 

"Ser Jaime Lannister, do you swear to give me honest council and swift obedience? To defend my realm against our foes, and to protect my people?" 

Lannister's confusion only seems to increase. "I swore that when I pledged you my sword, Your Grace--" 

"Be it known that Ser Jaime Lannister is granted the Twins, with all its attendant lands and incomes, there to make his seat and rule henceforth as Lord of the Crossing. Jaime Lannister and his children and grandchildren shall hold and enjoy these honors until the end of time. This has been granted by the grace of Ser Brynden Tully, Castellan of Riverrun, who speaks with the voice of the Lord of the Riverlands, and the Queen's Council consent. Rise, Lord of the Crossing." 

Jaime Lannister distinctly does not rise. "Your Grace," he hisses, so the only people who can hear him are Arya, Jon, and Brienne. "Are you bloody _mad_?" 

"I am not," Arya says, somehow managing to not move her lips while she speaks. "Now stand up and thank me so we can get to the Council Room." 

" _Jaime_ ," Brienne grits the man's name out. " _Rise_ , you oaf." 

"Oaf?" Lannister finally stands, though more in indignations. "I'm no—er. Thank you, Your Grace. The honor is too kind." 

**** 

Jaime Lannister seethes behind her as the rest of their strange court files out of the Great Hall. He holds himself in check until all that is left is her Small Council and Jon. 

"Why?" He rounds on her. "Why didn't you tell me?" 

"Because you would have refused," Arya is suddenly tired. Tired of the Freys and the North and this heavy responsibility.  

" _Yes_ ," Jaime snaps. "Yes. I would have." 

"It's yours," Arya sighs, shakes her head. "It's yours because no Stark wants to leave Winterfell. It's yours because I don't believe anyone else besides you and the Blackfish will be able to hold the Twins if the wights make it that far south." 

"By rights it should be the Blackfish's then. What a stupid thing to do, Your Grace--" 

"Guard your tongue, Lannister," the Blackfish warns, hand on the hilt of his sword. 

"You don't have to keep it," Arya says irritably. "After this is over, if we're all still alive, you can exile yourself to Tarth with Brienne and I'll foist the Twins on someone else. Rickon, maybe the Mormonts or the Reeds--" 

"Rickon," Jaime interrupts. "Rickon, your no-longer-dead brother, who I rescued, yes, I'd like him to have it. He can have it now." 

"What's death to a Stark?" Arya shakes her head. "No, it will have to be Bran, once we wed him to Meera." 

"Give it to _him_ now." 

Arya bites back her frustration. "No. I need someone to hold the Twins who _can_ hold the Twins. Rickon has led no armies and Bran has fought no battles. The Riverlands will not listen to a green Northman. They will listen to you." 

Jaime glances around the room, eyes wild.  

Ah. Of course. 

"If you wish for Brienne to accompany you, I suggest you ask for her hand," Arya mutters to him. 

"What do you--" Jaime shuts his mouth and starts again. "You would grant us this?" 

"I would." 

Jaime Lannister doesn't seem to be able to grasp what she's said. "You would—you would--" 

"If she accepts. I won't make her." 

"Of course. Yes. Thank you, Your Grace." His hand shakes as he curls it in a fist by his side. "Thank you." 

The rest of the day is a return to pattern—checking in with Gendry about the weapons, watching training drills, checking with Maester Wolkan about food stores, a meeting with Daenerys, having her wound checked by Sam. It's healing well, he assures her.  

Night falls over Winterfell, the sun setting earlier and earlier each day and rising later. Arya wonders if she will ever miss the warmth of Braavos, if the cold will yet grow wearisome.  

A knock sounds at her door, breaking her out of her reverie. "Enter, Sansa." 

"How did you know it was me?" 

"You knock in a very particular way." When Arya turns to face her sister, she looks a bit disbelieving. "What?" 

"You're very strange." 

Arya raises an eyebrow. 

"You are! Being Queen doesn’t make you less strange." 

"Did you come here for a reason, or did you just want to tell me I'm odd?" 

Sansa hesitates before looping her arm through Arya's and pulling her over to sit on the bed. "I never thanked you. For—for what you did for the Tyrells." 

"I wish I could say I did it for you, Sansa, but it was just--it was opportunistic." 

"But you've been...understanding. About Margaery." 

Ah. That. 

"You love who you love, Sansa. It isn't my place or desire to judge that. You deserve whatever happiness you can find." 

Sansa flops backwards on the bed, dragging Arya with her. It's nice. It feels like something they would have done as children, if they'd gotten along better.  

"You do, too, Arya. You deserve to love who you love, and happiness...have you...have you given thought to who you will wed?" 

Arya gives a very un-queenlike snort. "No one. I won't wed a man who merely wants a crown. I don't trust them, and I don't want them." 

"Don't be cross with me," Sansa warns, probably getting ready to suggest Arya wed a Tyrell. "But have you thought about—it does make sense—if you married Jon." 

Arya's head buzzes and it takes a moment for her to realize it's because she's stopped breathing.  

"You've always been close," Sansa continues, oblivious to Arya's unexpected panic. "I know we were raised as siblings, but he's not—it would cement your alliance with Daenerys and obligate her to continue supporting the North. And it would reassure her that you would support the Targaryen claim to the Iron Throne." 

There's something off in Sansa's voice, and Arya sits up to look at her sister. "Why haven't you brought this up to the small council?" 

"Because you're my sister as well as my Queen. Daenerys hasn't spoken to Jon about this, only her advisors. If you don't want this, I can make certain the question is never put before you." Sansa hesitates. "Do you _want_ the question put before you?" 

Perhaps she should say no, but she can't deny that her first instinct is _yes_.  

"You've always been close," Sansa continues, speaking towards the ceiling rather than at Arya. "He's a good man, Arya. It would be good for the family. For the North. For you." 

 _H_ _e died for you._  

Maybe. Maybe he would want to. 

Arya swallows hard, forcing her wants down. _No One does_ _n_ _ot_ _want. You must give up Arya Stark's hopes and wants._   

**** 

Jon needs to speak to Sansa. Tyrion keeps sizing him up like an aurochs about to be slaughtered, and as the North's Master of Whisperers, Jon is hoping Sansa can tell him what is going on. He has been excluded from the Dragon Court and the Small Council, and nothing he says softens the tension in Arya's shoulders and it's driving him mad.  

Running into Daenerys as she is leaving Sansa's rooms does nothing to improve his mood. 

"What are you doing, Aunt?" Jon blocks her from moving down the hall.  

Sansa holds up a bundle of white fabric that clicks as she moves it.  

"I was speaking to Lady Sansa about Arya's coronation. She needs something regal to wear. I wore that _tokar_ for my wedding in Meereen. Lady Sansa has a deft hand for needlework, but I thought perhaps she could use some additional resources." 

"She's going to look lovely, Jon," Sansa gives him a look that is more warning than comfort. "Her Grace has every reason to want this to be a successful celebration. A little less suspicion would be welcome." 

Daenerys-- 

Daenerys _laughs_ at the look on Jon's face, and pats his cheek. "Aegon. Arya and I have our differences but we both want what's best for the people of Westeros. I have plans." 

"Well," Sansa interjects. "Alliances." 

"Plans for alliances," Daenerys amends.  

"There it is," Sansa points to Jon's forehead. "That right there. It's your suspicious face." 

"He wears it so often I thought that was just his normal expression." 

"No," Sansa crosses her arms over the bundle of white fabric. "That's his suspicious face." 

Daenerys and Sansa's easy camaraderie is unnerving.  

"Aegon, I'll leave you to speak with your cousin," Daenerys smiles at him as Sansa dips into a curtsey. 

"Thank you again, Your Grace. Good evening to you." 

Daenerys vanishes around a corner and Jon glares at Sansa, unable to find words and instead just pointing down the hall.  

"What? I'm a member of the Small Council. It is my duty to queen and country to gather information. Oh, don't just stand there gawking, Jon. Come in. I have work to do." 

Sansa settles herself in a chair in front of the fire and slowly starts to pick apart the _tokar_ , putting the pearls in a small bowl by her side. They sit in silence long enough that Sansa has removed a whole row of pearls. Jon sits, unsure of how to begin and eventually Sansa looks up at him with a sigh. "What did you wish to speak to me about, Jon?" 

"Daenerys and her people will be going south to Dragonstone after Arya's coronation." 

"Yes. I know." 

"She wishes me to go with her." 

"I know." 

Jon growls in frustration. "Should I go?" 

Sansa sets her work aside. "Do you want to?" 

"Will I be welcome at Winterfell if I stay? Will it undermine Arya if I do? Does she want me to?" 

"Jon. Listen to yourself. Do you really know Arya so little?" 

Jon momentarily loses control of his jaw and has the distinct impression that Sansa is laughing at him. 

"So," Sansa picks her needlework back up. "Arya's received several offers of marriage." 

Jon chokes on nothing, and this time Sansa does laugh at him. 

**** 

Sansa helps Arya dress for her coronation because her hands are shaking so badly she can't manage on her own. Black quilted breeches tucked into black boots, the leather soft and supple. She pulls on a simple white tunic and Arya can't help but wonder where Sansa got _silk,_ of all things. Next is a thin wool jerkin, roughspun and faded with age.  

Arya looks at Sansa, the question in her eyes.  

"I—well, Sam—found a chest with some of father's old things in it," Sansa says, her voice catching in her throat. "Some of it just fell apart in my hands, rot and moths—but there was a cloak and some leathers and a few bits and pieces—enough to make this." Sansa tugs at the shoulders so they sit properly. "I thought you might want to have a piece of him with you." 

"Don't start," Arya warns her. "Sansa. I can't cry today, I'm becoming a queen today, Sansa, don't you dare--" 

It's too late. Sansa starts to weep, and Arya pulls her sister into the best hug she can manage since the woman is over a head taller than she. Arya furiously blinks back her own tears. 

"I'll never betray you, Arya," Sansa vows before pulling away, wiping at her cheeks.  

"I know." 

"You look so much like him," Sansa clears her throat.  

There is a loud rapping at the door, followed by Brienne saying, "My Lady, Your Grace—it's near time." 

Sansa nods at this, suddenly brisk and efficient, helping Arya into the final piece. 

It is a coat of the softest grey wool Arya has ever touched. It reaches almost to her knees, forming a skirt of sorts that looks elegant and is wonderfully warm. Sansa has worked direwolves along the hem in a silver thread that shines subtly in the light. The shoulders of the jacket are covered in tiny pearls. They almost seem to pile along the shoulders, right up to the neck where they meet soft white fur. A few of the pearls appear to drift down the back, looking for all the world like-- 

"Snow," Arya runs her fingers over it. "It looks like snow." 

"Of course it does," Sansa says in a way that is just so _Sansa_ , as if this should have been perfectly obvious.  

Silver thread and pearls—she'll look as though she's been clothed in winter, in gleaming ice and snow.  

Sansa tuts a bit as she pins up Arya's thick braid so that it doesn't catch on the pearls. She circles Arya once, twice, before nodding her approval. "You look beautiful. We're ready." 

 

 

Arya kneels before the weirwood, Nymeria lowering herself to the ground at Arya's side. _Hear me, you old gods,_ she prays. _Gods of my father, give_ _me strength to protect my people. Your people. Give me wisdom to rule. Give me patience. Grant us peace._  

When at last she looks away from the carved face, Bran is next to the tree. The three-eyed crow is as close as the old gods ever got to a septon, she supposes, and Bran offers her the smallest of smiles, almost as if he can hear her thoughts.  

"Arya, of House Stark," he intones. "Lady of Winterfell, Daughter of the North. Why do you come before the old gods this night?" 

"I ask their protection for the North." 

Howland Reed steps out from the shadows. "Arya of House Stark, do you swear to defend your people from all who may seek to cause them harm?" 

"I swear." 

"Arya, sister and heir of King Robb, the Young Wolf," a younger voice pipes in as Lyanna Mormont says her part. "Do you swear to dispense justice to the wicked, and to protect the innocent of their crimes?" 

"I swear." 

Wyman Manderly is helped forward by two of his sons, one of whom tries to catch Arya's eye. "Arya Stark, Lady of Winterfell, do you swear to act always in the best interest of your people, putting their needs foremost?" 

Her queendom weighs heavy on her shoulders, the words of her vows pressing her into the earth. _I do not want this_ is her desperate thought. _But I must. Family, duty, honor._  

And then the Blackfish steps forward, placing his hands on her head. "The gods of your mother bless you. May the Father give you wisdom. May the Mother lead you to mercy. May the Warrior give you courage, may the Maid keep you safe. Let the Smith help you mend this broken realm and the Crone light the way to peace. May the Stranger leave you be for many years yet to come." 

Not the words she had asked to be said about the Stranger, but the Blackfish had deemed her chosen blessing too scandalous. Regardless, Jon rolls Bran's chair forward so her younger brother can mark her forehead with weirwood sap. "May the old gods grant you might. May they strengthen your steel and sharpen your teeth for the Long Night." He's blessing Nymeria, Arya realizes, warmth spreading through her chest. "May they smile on you as the defender of their people and their ways." 

They all know the old gods don't grant many gifts--the direwolves, warging and greendreams seem too much already. Arya does not believe they will grant her more than that, but it seems wrong to be a queen in the north and ask only for the blessing of Southron gods.  

Jon and Jaime approach her then, Jon's hands loose around the crown. For a brief, strange moment, Arya is _panicked_. This is too much. She cannot—how can she-- 

"And may the angel the Many-Faced God sent to you have many years walking by your side," Jon murmurs. 

The words soothe her. _I am not afraid of death. I am not afraid of a crown_. She closes her eyes as Jaime and Jon lower the crown on to her head. They take their time with it—for all the words and prayers, this is the most important part, the part where a metal circle gets put on her head, and for a moment it's simply absurd. At least, it is until the weight of the crown settles on her, heavy and cold. Being a king should not be comfortable. 

"Rise," Bran says, and she does; back straight and neck long to keep the crown from sliding. Nymeria rises as she does, and Arya rests her hand on the direwolf's head. "I present to you Arya Stark, First of her Name, the Night Wolf, Queen in the North." 

That does it. She barely has time to focus on a face before the people— _her_ people—have taken up the chant.  

"The Queen in the North! The Queen in the North!" 

**** 

"Are you here to steal a wolf, my dragon?" Arya's voice is thick with sleep and Jon freezes. _My_ _dragon_ , she called him. _Hers_.  

"A gift, my Queen." He crosses to her and sets the winter rose on the pillow next to her. "And only a great fool would try to steal you without your consent." 

Arya sits in her bed, the moonlight gleaming off of her dark hair. She reaches for the rose, drawing it up to her face to smell its perfume.  

"Tormund called you the Wolf of the Winter Rose," Jon says by way of explanation.  

"He's called me many things." Arya's eyes turn on him, cool silvery grey that calms him, ice to fire. "And do you fly south with the dragon court tomorrow?" 

"Unless your grace has need of me here." 

"I always have need of you, Jon." 

Her words are laced with meaning and they settle warm and solid around his heart, even as her hand settles against his face. Arya's hands are battle-scarred and callused but her touch is still gentle. "I will always have need of you," she says again, her breath a sweet sigh across his face. "But I would not keep you from where you wish to be." 

 _She doesn't know_. The thought strikes Jon harder than any physical blow. How can she not know? He'd thought his love for her so plain, pouring out of him every time he looked on her.  

"Then let me stay," he finds his voice. He turns his face into her hand, pressing a kiss against her palm. "Please, Your Grace." He breathes, and dares. "Arya." 

He leans forward until his nose bumps hers and then his lips are on hers.  

Jon can feel the calluses on her palms as she strokes his cheeks before tangling her fingers in his hair. She kisses him, and he could live off of this, the taste of her and her soft sighs and the way she pants when she pulls away.  

"Stay, Jon. I command it." 

"Gladly, My Queen." 

When he kisses her again, he can feel her smile against him.  

**Author's Note:**

> I FEEL LIKE IT GOT WEIRD AT THE END but honestly I've hit the wall on this so I'm pretty sure it makes sense. I hope.


End file.
